Falling Down
by Quill of Molliemon
Summary: AU, crossover, short-ish story; follows "Ditto!". Naruto suffers an accident. Minato has an encounter that leads to a shocking discovery. And one of Kushina's fears is about to come to pass... COMPLETE
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Pokémon. If I did, I'd have a lot of money…but I don't. So don't bother suing, you won't get anything out of it.

**Notes:** (Crossover, could be a crack!fic if you want) Here there be Naruto characters and Pokémon monsters! This is a _seven-part short story_ which follows "Ditto!".

I hope that you enjoy it!

* * *

**Falling Down**_  
Part I_

Naruto groaned and wiped more sweat from his forehead as he paused in his hike. After his sojourn in the desert of the Land of Wind, he'd figured that the cool mountain air of the Kage Mountains would be a nice change. Too bad that struggling along steep, rocky mountain trails was just as sweaty work as trudging through the desert.

The scenery was a whole lot more interesting, though. Instead of endless stretches of featureless sand dunes and the odd sandstone mesa, the young Uzumaki found himself in the midst of majestic peaks. There were sheer cliffs, misty waterfalls, and he'd just exited the lengthy Toad Mouth Tunnel, which was so maze-like and dark that he'd gotten lost for a few days. And hopefully once he'd hiked to the end of the trail he'd find a more welcoming town than dusty Suna City had been when he'd cleared the worst of the desert.

Myouboku Town was a small, remote place, and a resort town. It was blessed with many natural hot springs which led to the building of many spas and _onsen_. Tourists would travel there from all over to relax and be refreshed by the warm water and mud baths. But Naruto didn't care for any of that; his interest lay in Myouboku Town's gym.

He had four gym badges already. The first three had cemented his trainer's license. With that pressure off his shoulders, he'd challenged a pokémon dojo and gone to a foreign gym on a whim to acquire his fourth badge. Now that he was halfway to having the necessary eight, he was ready to get badge number five.

_After this, I'll head to Senju City,_ Naruto decided as he started hiking again. _The Forest of Death is around there. I hear that's a great place to train—lots of grass, bug, dark, and ghost types there. And if Shadow hasn't managed to evolve by the time I get there, I'll see if I can find the Mossy Stone that's supposed to be hidden there so that he can become a leafeon. Maybe I'll rename him "Konoha" then…that's supposed to mean "leaf"—_

A crashing sound stopped him short. Up above the narrow trail there was a ledge where a wild machoke was tussling with several gravelers. The beefy fighting type hefted one of the rock pokémon over its head and hurled it aside. The boulder-y creature rolled down the slope…and straight for Naruto.

With a yelp, Naruto scrambled to the side to avoid being crushed. But he moved too close to the edge of the path and the ground crumbled under his feet. Screaming, he fell down a sheer drop of a few yards and then tumbled end over end down a rough, gravelly slope and then there was a boulder—

* * *

Something was wrong. Demon sensed this instantly when he escaped the containment field of his pokéball and found himself on the side of a mountain instead of on a hiking trail. And then, as he struggled to keep his footing on the loose rock, he spotted the blonde-haired human boy crumpled up against the side of a large boulder.

_:…Whisker Face?:_

When the golden-colored vulpix got no response from the human, he carefully crept closer. The human lay still with eyes closed as if asleep, but the boy was positioned awkwardly on the ground, his bare skin was all scraped up, and there was blood on his face. Demon crinkled his muzzle at the metallic odor of blood and pressed his front paws on the human's shoulder to shake him.

_:Hey, get up Whisker Face!:_ Demon barked. _:This is no place to take a nap!:_

The young pokémon trainer didn't wake up.

_:Hey, what's going on?:_

Demon looked a few feet up the slope to find that Bolt had also escaped his ball. The pikachu looked around frantically in confusion, alarmed by the trail of supplies that had exploded from the human's destroyed backpack. When the electric mouse spotted Demon crouched by the fallen trainer, he glared and sparks danced around his red cheeks.

_:What did you do?!:_ Bolt squeaked furiously.

_:I didn't do anything!:_ Demon growled. _:I found him like this.:_

_:I don't believe you!:_ Bolt shot back. _:It's always your fault!:_

_:It is not!:_ Demon hissed.

_:Why are you fighting?:_ a new voice whimpered. _:What's going on?:_

Shadow the eevee was loose now and taking in the scene with wide, confused eyes.

_:Demon hurt Naruto-kun again,:_ Bolt said.

_:No I didn't!: _Demon barked. _:I didn't do anything to Whisker Face!:_

_:Naruto-kun?:_ Shadow squeaked. He spied the blonde trainer limp as the base of the large rock. _:Naruto-kun!:_ The eevee panicked and tried to run to the human boy, but the gravel gave way under his paws and he slipped sideways down the mountainside. _:Aah! Help!:_

One of the other pokéballs that had come loose from the trainer's belt wobbled and then the sphere cracked open. A purple and black toad creature appeared and sprinted down the unstable slope to catch the falling eevee. Once it got hold of the smaller pokémon, it dug its feet into the gravel and slowed the slide until they stopped.

_:Good save, Gamakichi!:_ Bolt cried, pumping a fist into the air.

_:No problem,:_ the croagunk grinned and carefully carried Shadow back up towards the boulder. _:So, Naruto, do you have any snacks for me?:_ the poisonous fighter asked. When he reached the up-slope side of the rock where his trainer lay, he froze. _:Er…Naruto?:_

_:Naruto-kun…:_ Shadow whimpered and slipped from Gamakichi's now limp arms to paw at the boy's scraped arm.

_:Whoa…:_ Gamakichi puffed out his red cheeks with a croak. _:What happened?:_

_:I don't know,:_ Bolt answered. _:But I bet that it's Demon's fault.:_

_:It was not!:_ Demon snarled. _:Stop blaming me for something I didn't do!:_

_:Stop fighting!:_ Shadow yelped. _:Naruto-kun hates it when you fight…:_

_:…He's really hurt,:_ Gamakichi murmured, gently probing at tears in the boy's clothes. _:What should we do?:_

Bolt ran his nimble paws through the boy's blonde spikes of hair. _:He's too big and heavy for any of us to move him…:_

_:Typhoon could do it,:_ Shadow suggested hopefully.

_:The ground is too steep and loose,:_ Demon snorted. _:He'll just take us all further down the mountain if we call him out.:_

_:We should wait for Naruto-kun to wake up,:_ Bolt decided. _:When he wakes up, we'll help him find a pokémon center so that he can be healed.:_

Demon frowned and stared down at the human boy. He was so still and pale and quiet that it didn't seem natural. The stupid human was always so noisy and energetic…

_:You really think he'll just wake up on his own?:_ the vulpix scoffed. _:I say that we go find another human to help Whisker Face.:_

_:And abandon Naruto-kun to whatever wild pokémon that are around?:_ Bolt squeaked angrily. _:No. We stay here and protect him until he wakes up!:_

_:I'm not leaving Naruto-kun!:_ Shadow declared.

_:Leaving might not be a good idea,:_ Gamakichi said uneasily. _:We could get lost.:_ The croagunk flipped up on top of the boulder. _:If any humans walk past on the trail I'll see them and then we can get their attention.:_

_:Cowards!:_ Demon sneered. _:You can't do anything for yourselves now that you're tamed!:_ He turned away from them and started carefully picking his way up to the trail. _:I'll see you babies later when I find a human.:_

The fox only hesitated when he reached the flat, stable ground of the path. He wasn't sure which way that the blonde boy had been heading, but surely there would be humans in either direction. There was always a human somewhere on a marked path.

_Alright._ Demon took off down the trail at a gallop, his nose seeking the pungent scent of humans. _Now to find a human…_

* * *

Minato stared out over the mountains as the sun set behind them. He loved the Kage Mountains. He'd grown up in Myouboku Town and knew the cliffs and ravines around town like the back of his hand. And there were a lot of places in the mountains that were so isolated that no one knew about them. Minato had found a few such places, and he was currently on his way to one of them to camp out for a while.

Being the League Champion of _Hi no Kuni_ was not how he had imagined that it would be. There was the respect, recognition, and knowledge that he was one of the elite pokémon trainers in the world…but there were also a lot of obligations that went with the title. He had to participate in certain league tournaments and other official events. As one of the most skilled and respected trainers, he also was counted on to help the police in cases where criminal organizations and pokémon were intertwined.

And then there were the unwritten, unofficial obligations. People all over the country, and even outside of the country, looked up to him. If some of his fans recognized him, he couldn't just dodge them; he had to be polite and indulge them a little. There were requests for autographs and photographs and even the occasional young punks who thought that they were the better battler even though they hadn't bested the required eight gyms.

It had been a novel yet unnerving thing at first for awestruck strangers to approach him wherever he went. But it quickly became simply unnerving. Minato wasn't shy, but he was a private person and preferred anonymity over fame. Over the years it drove him to become as reclusive as he could—traveling to remote places and foreign countries simply to be alone for a while. It just got so hard to stand the shining eyes of small children, and the mix of envy and admiration of other trainers, and the romantic hope and lust of young women who dreamed of winning his heart…

…He especially needed to escape from the female fans.

Minato had never imagined that he would attract a female following upon earning his title. When he'd first started out as a trainer he'd been so young that girls hadn't had any place in his mind. Even when he'd grown older he hadn't given much thought to the consequences of achieving his dream. All that was on his mind was pokémon and how to be better.

_Maybe that was my mistake,_ he brooded as the vanishing sun created the illusion that the mountains were on fire. _I only focused on what I wanted in the future, not what the future would actually be like. I never paid enough attention to the present. If only I had…if only…_

The sting of a light static shock jolted him from his grim thoughts and he blinked, finding Kiroi sitting on the ground in front of him.

"Sorry," he sighed. "Was I looking too gloomy?"

The raichu slowly climbed into his lap.

"Alright," he chuckled humorlessly and patted Kiroi on the head. "No more brooding on how big of an idiot I am."

Kiroi licked his fingers.

Minato sighed and eased the raichu onto his shoulder. He needed to find a good spot to sleep for the night before it got too dark. By tomorrow afternoon, he should be at one of his special hidden spots for a good two weeks of alone time.

A metallic chiming sound caught his ear just as he was readjusting his camping pack on his back. He thought it was a chingling or chimecho at first, as those pokémon produced chime-like calls. But as he listened, he found the sound to be more like a bell. Minato glanced around at the thorny brush and stunted trees that grew at this altitude for the source of the sound. But the sound found him.

The bushes rustled and then a vulpix burst out into the open. Minato frowned at the little fox pokémon and slowly pulled out his battered pokédex. He was familiar with the species, but this one's coloration…

_It's shiny,_ he realized in awe.

When he'd been young he'd watched the documentary on the rare red gyarados whenever it had come on TV—he'd been fascinated by it. And once he'd encountered a trainer who possessed a "shiny" meowth (the feline had been light pink instead of the usual pale yellow). Acquiring such a unique pokémon had been a wish of his ever since he'd first learned that such creatures existed.

The golden-yellow vulpix flinched at the sight of him and stared up at his face as if transfixed. It was heavily panting like it had been running for a while. Minato almost ordered Kiroi to hit the vulpix with a _thunder wave_ so that it couldn't run away and he could capture it, but then he heard the bell jingle again.

_A soothe bell,_ he noted. _So…it belongs to someone already. Damn._

"Hello there," he greeted softly, keeping his tone friendly and non-threatening so that the small monster couldn't flee. "Are you lost?"

The vulpix broke from its strange little trance and yapped at him. Kiroi slid down from his shoulder and slowly approached the fire fox. His raichu calmly engaged it in a conversation that only the two of them could understand while Minato patiently watched.

The language of pokémon was one of the biggest mysteries that lingered around the creatures. Countless pokémon researchers spent their entire careers trying to decipher the way that pokémon communicated without success. Each species made its own kind of unique vocalizations, and yet all species—even those that would never naturally meet—seemed to have no difficulty in understanding each other.

When the discussion ended, Kiroi beckoned to him while the vulpix anxiously paced.

"So we're going on a field trip?" Minato asked. "It's getting late; can't we do this in the morning?"

The vulpix snarled and actually sprayed a small burst of embers at him. Minato let out an undignified yelp and stumbled out of the way of the attack. Kiroi immediately disciplined the fire fox, using her long, thin tail to sweep the vulpix's legs out from under it and then pinning it to the ground with one foot. The vulpix thrashed but Kiroi stilled it with a warning crackle of electricity from her yellow cheeks.

"Okay, okay," Minato sighed. "We go now."

At his signal, Kiroi released the vulpix. It gave them both an ugly look before heading off the way that it had come; periodically pausing to make sure that they were following. Kiroi seemed rather disgruntled by the vulpix's audacity, but Minato was more intrigued with why the vulpix wanted them to follow it.

In his experience, the rarer the pokémon, the more jealously a trainer protected it. A pokémon as unique as this vulpix should never be alone in the wild without its trainer anywhere in sight. This seemed to indicate that something had happened to its trainer.

_Camping can wait. This might be more important…_

* * *

Kushina stared out over the glassy surface of Lake End as the sun set behind the trees. Her vaporeon dozed by her feet and her kabutops crouched watchfully nearby while the rest of her pokémon lurked beneath the still waters of the lake. A cool breeze that carried the sounds of a distant flock of spearow combed through her long red hair and made her shiver.

She missed her son. For eleven years her entire world had revolved around him. If her mind ever wandered onto thoughts of the past, she simply distracted herself with looking after Naruto. But with her son away, there was no escape from the shadows of her own past…and her old mistakes.

Small mistakes were nothing; she could deal with those no problem. But big problems, big mistakes…those she ran from like the devil was after her. People always thought that she was brave, but her boldness and impulsiveness was just so that she didn't have time to think—time to get scared.

_I'm such a coward,_ she thought bitterly. _I run away to escape…but I only trap myself more. My life's a mess and it's all my own damn fault._

On the surface, her life was fine. She had a loving son and a nice house in a nice town. But aside from Naruto and her faithful pokémon, she was alone.

She missed her family and her home country. She missed all the friends that she'd made on the road as a trainer. She missed _him_.

But she couldn't go back to them. Surely they'd all resent her for leaving them, for all the things that she'd kept from them. Maybe they'd even hate her; _he_ definitely would.

Kushina couldn't bear that.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, vainly hoping that the breeze would carry her words to all the people that needed to hear it.

The brightly-colored sunset faded into murky twilight.

"I'm so sorry."

* * *

Shadow stared up at the yellow full moon and shivered. Naruto-kun was getting cold and he was starting to breathe funny. He still hadn't woken up.

Before the sun had gone down, Bolt and Gamakichi had collected all of the things that had fallen out of Naruto-kun's bag. The pikachu and croagunk had tried to fix the bag, but they'd only ended up tearing it worse. Shadow had just stayed curled up near Naruto-kun's head to keep him warm while they waited.

_Why can't I evolve?_ the eevee wondered miserably. _Bolt evolved into a pikachu just fine. I should be able to evolve the same way, so why haven't I?_

Naruto didn't seem to mind Shadow's failure to transform. He had to be one of the best, nicest trainers in the world. He'd taken them through four gyms _and_ a pokémon dojo. He'd not only won Gamakichi from the dojo, but he'd gotten Sandy the trapinch from the creepy gym leader in Suna City. And he'd raised Bolt from pichu to pikachu, and Typhoon from a lowly magikarp to a mighty gyarados. One day everyone would see how great Naruto-kun was.

_But will I still be with him?_ Shadow worried. _If I don't evolve soon, he might get fed up with me and send me away. He might replace me with a better pokémon._

It was a worry that had been growing inside of him for more than a month. Whenever he confided his fears to the others, they always tried to reassure him that Naruto-kun would never do that. Well, not Sandy because she was too new, and not Demon because he was mean, but Bolt, Typhoon, and Gamakichi did.

A cold wind moaned through the peaks and Shadow snuggled closer to Naruto-kun. His trainer always tried to do some training with him at night in hopes that the eevee would evolve. But Shadow hated the dark; it was scary.

A creepy laugh drifted on the air.

_:Did you hear that?:_ Gamakichi muttered.

_:It's probably just the wind,:_ Bolt whispered back.

The laugh grew louder and closer. _:I'm not the wind!:_

_:Who's there?!:_ Bolt demanded.

A gengar materialized in the air above them. _:We are!:_

_:We?:_ Shadow whimpered.

_:Yes!:_ the gengar cackled wildly. _:We!:_

And then a haunter, two gastlys, and a pair of shuppets appeared from thin air around the floating gengar.

_:What do you want?:_ Gamakichi asked warily, his body shivering in _anticipation_.

_:We want to eat that human's dreams!:_ the gengar laughed madly. _:Move aside and maybe we'll leave you alone.:_

_:But Naruto-kun is hurt,: _Bolt squeaked angrily. _:You can't eat his dreams!:_

_:You could kill him,:_ Gamakichi growled.

_:We don't care!:_ the haunter sneered. _:We're hungry!:_

The haunter vanished only to reappear right in front of them, disembodied hands spread wide. A cold sensation washed over Shadow, but both Bolt and Gamakichi went flying several feet away and down the mountainside. All the other ghosts swooped in, aiming for the helpless human.

_:G-go away!:_ Shadow squeaked and tried to cover his trainer's body with his own smaller one. _:Leave Naruto-kun a-alone!:_

_:Ugh, normal-types are so annoying,:_ one of the gastly groaned.

_:I'll take care of it,:_ the second gastly said and extended its tongue to _lick_ Shadow.

The eevee shivered at the disgusting contact and swung his tail at the gaseous ghost…only to touch nothing.

_:Idiot!:_ the gengar cursed and smacked the gastly. _:Ghost attacks can't touch normal types! That's why it didn't move when Haunter used __**astonish**__ on them! Put a __**curse**__—:_

Gamakichi appeared out of the darkness and slammed into the gengar. _:Take that!:_ the croagunk cried and lunged at the startled shuppets in _pursuit_. _:Come back here you stupid sheets!:_

_:Ow!:_ the gengar grunted. _:I hate __**faint attack**__! Gastlys, __**lick**__ that toad!:_

The two shadowy gas balls moved to attack Gamakichi from behind while he focused on the shuppets, but were interrupted by a burst of electricity.

_:Not so fast!:_ Bolt squeaked angrily, his red cheeks sparking. _:Don't forget about me!:_

_:You're annoying,:_ the gengar sneered. It hurled a misty orb of light at the pikachu. _:Eat this!:_

At first Bolt just sat there after being hit with the mysterious attack. Then the pikachu started to stumble and grope around. It was like his body was disobeying him, or that he was seeing things that weren't there.

_Oh no!_ Shadow trembled. _It confused him!_

_:Argh!:_

The eevee flinched at the croagunk's cry and turned to find the poisonous fighter trembling in paralysis. Gamakichi had battered both shuppets into submission, and badly damaged one of the gastly. But the second gastly had landed a good _lick_ and now he couldn't move.

_:Heh,:_ the gengar chuckled. _:Now that those two annoyances are taken care of…let's eat!:_

The gengar, haunter, and two gastly crowded around the fallen boy, brushing Shadow aside with their cold presences. They started drawing hazy streams of energy from the human. Naruto-kun's breathing got even worse and he started to moan and cry.

_:Stop it!:_ Shadow cried and threw himself between the ghosts and his trainer. _:You're killing him!:_

_:We don't care you fluffy rat!:_ the haunter snarled.

_:Move out of the way, or one of the gastly will __**curse**__ you!:_ the gengar threatened.

Shadow trembled in fear. Bolt was still staggering around in confusion. And Gamakichi was still frozen in paralysis.

_:N-no,:_ Shadow gulped. _:I…I'm not moving. I won't let you hurt Naruto-kun!:_

The gengar drifted down to the ground and strolled right up to Shadow with a sinister grin. _:…Too bad! __**Curse**__ him!:_

The healthier gastly loomed over him with a wicked, toothy grin.

_I can't run away._

The ghost generated a large nail and prepared to drive it into itself to lay the curse.

_I have to do something._

The moon was big and full and bright.

_I have to protect Naruto-kun!_

The eevee started to glow, giving the ghosts pause. Then the little monster's silhouette began to change and expand. When the aura of blinding light disappeared, a very different creature crouched there.

It was sleek and black and three times the size that it had been. Yellow rings were on its shoulders, hips, forehead, ears, and tail, which glowed faintly in the moonlight. Its eyes were red and glaring.

_**:I won't let you hurt Naruto-kun!:**_


	2. Part II

**Falling Down**_  
Part II_

Minato peered through the darkness as he and Kiroi picked their way along a treacherous rocky path that hugged a mountainside after the strangely-colored vulpix. To be able to see the narrow trail, he'd had his raichu use _flash_, turning her into a walking lantern. The circle of light cast by her glowing cheeks barely reached far enough out to keep the vulpix in view as it impatiently pranced ahead of them, leading them ever further down the road.

_This stretch of trail is dangerous, even in full daylight,_ Minato frowned. _Perhaps the vulpix's trainer walked too close to the edge, or part of the trail collapsed. If that happened, he or she could be very hurt…maybe even dead._

They rounded a bend in the trail and were greeted by the sounds of battle. The shrieks of ghost pokémon echoed against the mountainous cliffs. Minato didn't hesitate as he broke into a run.

Ghost pokémon only appeared in certain environments. They favored graveyards, abandoned buildings in remote places, and some forests and caves. It was rare to find them in open places like high on mountains, even at night. When they appeared in the Kage Mountains, it generally meant that a human was hurt or sick and drifting towards death.

The vulpix stayed in the lead before abruptly veering off the path. There was a short but steep drop-off and then a slope of jagged gravel and a few large boulders. Several yards down-slope, Minato could see a limp body up against one of the large boulders and a battle raging around it.

A haunter and gengar tried to get at the helpless human, but a dark-colored monster continually attacked them. Minato identified it as an umbreon by its glowing yellow markings. There were at least two other pokémon present, but it was hard to see what they were in the darkness. It was clear that they were incapacitated, though.

The umbreon pinned down the gengar and hit it with vicious _bite_ attacks. The haunter tried to attack the dark pokémon from behind, but the vulpix intervened with a burning hot _flamethrower_ strike. The ghost howled in pain and shock and faded away as it fled in a panic.

"Kiroi," Minato said quietly, "hit that gengar with a _volt tackle_."

The raichu's _flash_ canceled, leaving Minato in darkness as Kiroi sprinted down the mountainside shrouded in crackling lightning. She collided with the gengar, electrocuting it as it was knocked down the mountain. The ghost knew that it was outmatched and quickly faded from the scene.

"Kiroi, another _flash_ please!"

There was a burst of blinding light which tapered off into the soft illuminating glow that he wanted. With the area properly lit, Minato could see the hurt trainer and his pokémon much better. The boy was young, wounded, and unconscious. His two other loose pokémon were a paralyzed croagunk and a pikachu still trapped in the throes of confusion.

Minato sighed and unleashed his venusaur. "Hana, tie me off, I'm going down there."

The venusaur obediently wrapped a pair of her vines around his waist and eased him down the slippery mountainside to the boulder. He paused on his way to the boy to treat the croagunk's paralysis with a medicinal spray. The vulpix took care of the pikachu's confusion by smacking it in the face with its six curled tails until the yellow mouse returned to reality.

Upon reaching the boy, Minato carefully evaluated his injuries. He was no doctor, but he knew enough first aid to make a decent assessment of the young trainer's condition. The boy definitely had a head injury—his continued unconscious state and the dried blood caked on his face and scalp were clear signs of that. His ragged breathing could indicate cracked or broken ribs, maybe even a partially collapsed lung. And his left wrist was swollen—either sprained or broken. There were superficial scrapes all over the exposed bits of his skin and there were some impressive tears in his clothes, too.

"Poor kid," Minato muttered. "You had a nasty fall, didn't you?"

The boy didn't reply, of course. Minato found the boy's bag, the zipper torn and destroyed, and looked through it for some identification. The trainer's pokémon had probably had probably tried to fix it while they'd waited for help, which left the bag's contents a mess. He found basic supplies, a good stock of berries, two used pokéballs, and a handful of empty pokéballs and great-balls. In the very bottom, he found the trainer's pokédex.

Opening the device, Minato found the small screen cracked and dark. No matter what he did, he couldn't get it to turn on. Without it he had no way of identifying the boy.

A cold chill seeped over his skin and Minato looked over his shoulder to find the haunter diving at him. This ghost had less sense than the gengar and still wanted a piece of its prey. Now that it was over the shock of the _flamethrower_ it was back in a rage.

The umbreon lunged through the darkness in a _faint attack_ and intercepted the haunter moments before it reached Minato and the unconscious boy. The ghost shrieked, but tried to attack again, reaching out with a floating disconnected hand. Out of pure reflex, Minato hurled the nearest pokéball—one of the boy's great-balls—at the haunter. Just as the haunter was being sucked into the ball, the umbreon hit it with a _pursuit_ attack, the move doing double the damage it normally did.

The air was tense as the sphere sealed shut and tumbled several feet down the slope until the croagunk caught it. The blue ball twitched in the toad pokémon's hands, the button glowing red. Then the sphere stilled and the light went out.

"Phew," Minato sighed. "That was unexpected."

The croagunk glared at the great-ball and made as if to throw it and the haunter inside away.

"No, no, no, don't do that." Minato beckoned to the fighting toad. "Bring it here."

Under normal circumstances, the great-ball which was registered to the boy would've been teleported away by satellites after the containment field of the ball stabilized and the haunter was trapped. But because the boy's pokédex was broken, it couldn't detect that the boy now possessed seven pokémon on his person; one more than was legally allowed. Until his pokédex was repaired, the haunter wouldn't be going anywhere.

Now that the threat was past, the mystery trainer's pokémon had the time to study Minato—the strange human in their midst. The pikachu and umbreon watched him tensely, while the vulpix didn't seem to care. The croagunk stared uncertainly at him for a minute before approaching him.

Minato gently took the great-ball from the purple toad. "I know that this haunter hurt your master, but he's one of you now. Would your master like it if you threw him away?"

The croagunk puffed up its red cheeks and looked away under the gentle reprimand.

"Alright, now let's get your poor master out of here." Minato put the great-ball into the boy's bag and looked back up the mountainside. "Hana, more vines!"

His venusaur produced more vines and Minato arranged them so that they would pull the boy and his ruined bag back up to the path. Once Minato had that accomplished, he had Hana lash the boy to her shoulders so that he wouldn't slide off. With a little coaxing, he got all of the kid's pokémon back into their balls.

"Okay, Kiroi, light the way," Minato instructed. "Hana, let's head home…"

* * *

Minato yawned as he stepped out of Myouboku Town's pokémon center. He'd walked all night and arrived back in town early in the morning. After he'd dropped the boy (who'd remained unconscious) at the hospital he'd brought the young trainer's pokémon to the center to be cared for until the boy had recovered. Now there was one more thing he had to do before he could retreat to his half-uncle's home and get some sleep.

He made his way to a small electronics shop and waited at the counter for the owner to appear. With the boy's pokédex broken, there was no way to know who he was or discover his next of kin to let them know that the kid was in the hospital. Getting the device repaired was very important.

"Ah, Minato-san, what a pleasant surprise!" a gray-haired man with thick glasses greeted as he appeared from a back room. "You look a bit tired."

"I am," Minato smiled politely. He removed the damaged pokédex from his pocket and placed it on the counter. "Could you fix this for me?"

The older man carefully examined the device before nodding. "Yes, this I can fix. It's not yours, is it?"

"No," Minato replied. "It belongs to a young trainer who fell from one of the more dangerous trails outside of town and is out cold in the hospital. I need to get his information so that I can notify his family."

"I see," the man nodded gravely. "It'll be a while before I can repair it; I'm really backed up in my repair work. But I can retrieve the information that you need from it in a few minutes."

"That would be great," Minato smiled tiredly.

The repair man took the pokédex into the back. "It should just be a few minutes…"

Leaning heavily against the counter, Minato settled in to wait.

Admittedly he was very curious about the mysterious boy. When a nurse in the hospital had cleaned the blood from the boy's head, he'd been startled at how eerily the kid had resembled himself at the same age. The boy could've doubled for his son…if he'd had one.

And when he'd been transporting the boy to town, he'd noticed the kid's collection of gym badges. One of the badges he didn't recognize—some kind of stylized hourglass—so it had to be from another country as he knew all the badges that could be obtained in Fire Country. The other three badges he did know. There was the mirror-like Copy badge, the rainbow flower of the Illusion badge, and the flaming fist of the Fire-Will badge.

_So he's met Asuma, Kurenai, and Kakashi…_ Minato drummed his fingertips on the counter top. _That reminds me… Kakashi keeps leaving messages on my Capital City apartment answering machine. I really need to remember to call him back and see what he wants…_

"Here we are!" the repair man declared as he returned with a computer print-out. "I should get that pokédex fixed in a week at the very latest. I hope that kid will be okay."

"The doctors are sure that he'll recover just fine," Minato said as he took the paper. "Thank you."

Information in hand, Minato left the shop and headed home.

Although he'd been given an apartment in Capital City as the League Champion, home would always be his uncle's house in Myouboku Town. When he'd been very young his father had drowned when his fishing boat sank in a terrible storm. His mother had brought him to stay with her and her younger half-brother, Jiraiya, up in the mountains, far away from the sea. When she'd tragically passed away a few years later after a sudden illness, it was just him and Jiraiya-oji-san…

Despite being a gym leader, Jiraiya liked to travel. Three or four months out of the year he'd be out in the world somewhere—sometimes just beyond the mountains, sometimes in an exotic land far, far away. So when Minato arrived at the house and found it empty, he wasn't at all surprised.

Fighting back fatigue, he started brewing some coffee to get a much-needed boost. He put his camping gear away and washed his face. After a simple breakfast and a cup of coffee, he pulled out the print-out and started to skim the information.

The boy's name was the first thing that grabbed his attention. Naruto was an odd name to be sure. But his family name…

_She said that all of her family lives in Whirlpool County… But he was born in Konoha Town…that's in Fire Country. So…maybe it's a different Uzumaki family…_

But then his eyes came to the boy's listed emergency contact—his mother—and time froze.

_…No. This…this has to be a coincidence. It can't be her…_

Frantic, he tripped over his chair in his rush to get to the video phone. He mis-dialed the phone number listed on the print-out several times in his haste. When he finally got it right, he had trouble remembering to keep breathing while he waited for the connection to go through.

There was a click and the screen slowly came to life…

Her hair was long, too long. Her face was older. But the color of her eyes, the color of her hair, and the recognition and shock on her face…

_"…Did Kakashi give you my number?"_

"You talk to Kakashi, but not me?!" he shot back.

After all these years, he could finally see her, but not touch her. All the old wounds—the loneliness, the confusion, the anger and resentment—tore open inside of him. She'd disappeared over a decade ago after perhaps the stupidest argument they'd ever had without a word to him or anyone… And the first person that she speaks to again was Kakashi, the boy she used to barely tolerate?

_"He got my number and called me first,"_ she replied defensively. _"How did __**you**__ get my number?"_

Her face was pale and drawn; she was guarded. It was like she was afraid of him. She rarely ever showed that she was afraid of anything, and she'd never been afraid of him before.

It made him feel sick.

"I got it from a broken pokédex."

_"A broken…"_ Her face practically turned gray and her eyes widened in panic. _"How did it get broken?!"_

"It probably got smashed while he was tumbling down the mountain—"

_"Mountain?!"_ she yelped, sliding straight into hysteria. _"Where's Naruto? Is he alright? I want to see him!"_

"He's in the hospital—"

_"__**Hospital**__?! Where? What hospital?"_

"The hospital here in Myouboku—"

_"Okay,"_ she mumbled, turning away from her phone's video pickup. _"Okay…"_

And then the screen went dark.

Minato stared at the black screen. "Kushina…"

Shaking his head, he stumbled away to a couch and collapsed onto it. His mind was a mess. His heart hurt even worse.

_Why did she run away? Why didn't she tell me? Why did she hide him from me?_

He wanted to call her back and demand answers. He wanted to reach through the video-phone screen and shake her until she explained herself. He wanted to grab hold of her and never let her go so that she couldn't disappear on him again.

And that boy… The boy who'd fallen from the mountain trail… The boy who the ghosts had tried to devour… The boy that he'd taken to the hospital…

_…My son?_

* * *

Kushina could barely think through her panic. She circled around her house wringing her hands and occasionally pausing to grab some articles of clothing and toss it haphazardly into a bag. All she could think about was getting from Konoha Town to Myouboku Town as fast as possible.

_If I ride Tsunami down the Star River, that will get me to Southport. I can catch a ferry there to Northport. And from there Myouboku is just a train ride and cable car trip away… I could be there in four days._

Her route mapped out in her mind, she finished stuffing her bag and went to gather her monsters. She made a few quick phone calls to cancel plans, take time off from her part-time job at the Professor's place, and arrange for a neighbor to take care of her berry plants. And then she was out the door, barely remembering to lock it behind her.

She didn't think how she was running right into everything that she'd been hiding from for so long. The dread and indecision was overridden by a single driving need. Her baby was far away and hurt, and he needed her.

_Mommy's coming, Naruto. Mommy's coming…_

* * *

_…He was standing on the edge of the lake. Everything was misty and rather colorless. Out in the water, he watched his mother's pokémon play with a smile. But as he watched, the mist slowly swallowed them and he was alone alone alone alone…_

_He was in a bright white room that made his head hurt. Two people in white coats were standing by his bed and talking to him, but he couldn't focus on their words. He asked them questions, but they didn't seem to be answered. His chest hurt and it was hard to breathe._

_…He was in the woods outside his house and walking. He wasn't sure where he was going or why, he just kept walking. And then Demon was there and running away from him. He gave chase, but Demon just got faster and faster. He couldn't breathe and it felt like cold hands were reaching into his body and sapping his strength…_

_He was in a bright white room that made his head hurt. A woman in a white dress was standing by his bed and talking to him, but his mind kept wandering to gravelers for some reason. She offered him food, but he felt too queasy to eat much of it. His chest hurt and it was hard to breathe._

_…He was walking in the mountains and it was dark. Rocks fell all around him, then geodudes, then gravelers. He was crushed and trapped and all his monsters were driven away by the rain of rocks. And then the rocks stopped falling and shadowy tentacles reached for him. They were icy-cold and he felt weaker and weaker. He was dying—_

_He was in a dark room and he couldn't breathe. A shadowy figure that he couldn't really see caught him by the shoulders and eased him back down against the bed. He was frightened and cried out for his mother, but she didn't come. The shadowy person stroked his hair gently and whispered kindly to him._

_"Go to sleep, Son. Your mother will be here soon…"_

_And he slept._

* * *

Sunlight stabbed at his eyelids and Naruto groaned. He tried to move to escape it, but a sharp pain in his left side kept him from squirming away. Blinking, he found himself in a strange bed in a sterile white room that smelled like nasty medicine. He was wearing strange pajamas and he had no idea where his stuff was—or where he was, for that matter. He tried to remember what might've led him to end up in this hospital sort of place, but aside from a bunch of really weird bits of dreams he really couldn't recall how he'd ended up here.

"Good morning!"

Naruto turned his head to find a smiling woman in a white uniform entering the room.

"Hi," he greeted warily. "Where am I?"

"You're in Myouboku Hospital," the nurse cheerfully informed him. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess," Naruto muttered. "It hurts to breathe too deeply."

"Well that's normal for bruised ribs. The pain will be gone once they've healed," the woman assured him. "Does anything else hurt?"

"No, not really," Naruto replied. "How'd I get here?"

"A traveler found you off a dangerous hiking trail and brought you here," the nurse told him. "It was very lucky for you that he found you. With your injuries, there was no way you would've made it in on your own. In addition to your ribs, you sprained your wrist and suffered a very nasty concussion."

Naruto rubbed at his scarred cheek. "Who found me?"

"I don't know," the woman shrugged. "I wasn't on shift when you came in. Maybe one of the doctors knows. Would you like some breakfast?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded, but before the nurse left to get him some he had one more question. "How long have I been here?"

"Almost four days," she told him.

_Four days?_ Naruto frowned and studied the bandages wrapped around his left forearm. _That long? …I wonder how much longer I'm going to be stuck here. And where are my pokémon?_


	3. Part III

**Falling Down**_  
Part III_

Minato sat on the front steps of his uncle's house and sighed. Four days of stewing on what he'd learned hadn't cleared his head any. If anything, he was more upset and confused. He just looked outwardly calmer.

He'd tried calling her a few times each day, but all he got was her answering machine. Once she knew where Naruto was, she'd probably called the hospital and found out all that she needed to know. She had no need to talk to him anymore, and was probably ignoring him.

For the millionth time he reviewed their break-up…which he hadn't realized was a break-up at the time. She'd seemed off for weeks beforehand, always cranky and fighting off some kind of virus. And then, that night, she'd gotten all nasty about a girl that had flirted with him and passed him a love note with her phone number. It was stupid, he hadn't been the least bit interested in the girl, but Kushina kept snapping at him and pushing his buttons until it flared up into a full-blown argument. With a few nasty parting shots, she stormed off and he went to bed in their hotel room.

They had argued before, and sometimes she would get mad enough to leave. But once she cooled down, she always came back. She rarely ever apologized when it was her fault, but she would act apologetic and that would be enough. Once or twice she'd been gone for days before turning up again.

So he hadn't thought that anything was unusual until she didn't turn up when he'd made his challenge to Fire Country's reigning League Champion, Hiruzen Sarutobi. He couldn't imagine that she'd still be mad enough to have missed out on that fight. But all throughout the celebrations of his victory he never once caught a glimpse of her fiery red hair anywhere.

He started making quiet inquires around to see if anyone had seen her or knew where she was. He waited for a letter or postcard; even though she was no longer on speaking terms with her family she would still write to them every now and then. But weeks turned into months and months turned into years and there was never anything at all.

Minato had feared that she was dead, then. Kushina was stubborn and hard-headed, but surely she would've gotten over whatever had set her off and contacted him by then. She would've come back to him if she could…she always came back.

_But she was okay,_ he brooded, picking at some blades of grass that were growing between the stones of the front walkway. _She ran away from me, had a baby, and never said a word to me or anyone about it. And all over a stupid, flirty waitress that hit on me?!_

It didn't make sense. Sure, Kushina could get a little insecure when he was around pretty girls. But her reaction to that one-sided flirtation was completely out of proportion and irrational. There had to be some other reason that she'd abandoned him…

_…I should've told her that I loved her._

They'd never really defined what their relationship was. He never knew when it changed until long after it had. At first she was just some unwanted tag-along that he couldn't shake. Then somewhere along the way she became a trusted friend and companion. And then somehow, for a short while, she was a lover.

_Maybe if she knew…she wouldn't have run away. Or she would've come back._ He ran out of blades of grass in easy reach and sighed. _Or maybe she would've run off sooner…_

A shadow fell over him.

"Where's the hospital?"

He started at the voice and jerked his head up to find—

"Kushina?!" _She came here?!_

She looked pale and tired. Her red hair, which was even longer than he thought it had been, was pulled in a loose ponytail and the barrette that keep her bangs out of her face was almost falling out of her hair. There were shadows under her eyes, like she'd barely slept. A duffel bag hung haphazardly from her shoulder. To have arrived so quickly, she must've left right after getting his phone call.

"Where is the hospital?" she demanded, her face stony.

His brain was too frazzled to respond. She was actually here, not behind a screen and miles away. He could touch her if he wanted to. All he had to do was—

She grabbed him by the hair and pulled. "Where. Is. The. Hospital?"

"Ow! _Ow_! Okay, okay, I'll-I'll take you," he yelped.

"Do it then," she growled and released her painful grip.

"Okay," he gulped and, after taking her bag and tossing it inside the house, he headed for the hospital.

They walked side by side in silence towards the hospital on the opposite side of the resort town. Normally he wouldn't mind, but she would be bothered by the quiet and find something to talk about. Now the roles were reversed—she didn't seem to have anything to say, but he couldn't stand the silence.

"Why did you leave?" he asked quietly.

Her eyes were fixed straight ahead. "I don't want to talk about it right now."

"Well when are we going to talk about it?" he demanded.

She didn't answer.

Minato clenched his teeth and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop with him. "When are we going to talk about it?"

"Not right now," she ground out. "Now take me to the hospital, or I'll find someone else who will."

He glared at her, but let go of her arm and continued on to the hospital building. "Why didn't you get in touch with me?"

She didn't respond.

"Why didn't you tell me about Naruto?"

Still nothing.

"You could've called me anytime, or just written a letter. I know that's all you do to keep in touch with your family, why not write me? Do I really mean so little to you?"

He was venting his frustrations now, but still she said nothing.

"Did anything that we did together mean anything to you? Was I just some adventure that you were done with? Did you ever think of me at all after you left?"

She still had no reaction and he wondered if she was hearing anything that he was saying.

He threw all sorts of sharp questions and bitter comments at her, trying to get a response as well as releasing everything that he'd bottled up. He tried to get her talking with meaningless questions, like why had she decided to grow out her hair after keeping it so short for so long. But she just followed his lead in uncharacteristic stoic silence.

"…I waited for you," he sighed as the hospital building came into sight at last. "I didn't know that anything was wrong, so I just waited for you to come back. And when you didn't come back, I started looking for you…but I never found you. I waited for phone calls or letters that didn't come." His chest felt uncomfortably tight. "I missed you. Did you miss me at all?"

"Please," she said softly, her voice wavering and watery. "Shut up. I just want to see him and then go to sleep. I haven't slept since…I don't know."

Minato bit his lip, then tentatively looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. "He'll be okay. If you hadn't hung up on me, or called the hospital, you'd know that. He didn't break anything, just a lot of bruises, a sprain, and a concussion. He'll be okay."

She buried her face into his shoulder and cried. He stood frozen for a moment before carefully embracing her. It felt awkward; it had just been so long since they'd had any sort of physical contact with each other.

He found it all very unnerving as Kushina rarely cried. Usually if she did cry, it would only be a few tears that managed to escape her eyes and then she would pull herself together. She was a tough girl and refused to be a sissy cry-baby. It was beyond bizarre to have her weeping and vulnerable like this.

"Kushina…" he mumbled into her hair.

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm sorry…that I'm so s-stupid…and cowardly…and stubborn…"

"Shh," he soothed. "You're just tired. Let's go see Naruto and then get you to bed."

"Okay," she sniffed, pulling away to rub at her eyes with shaking hands. "Okay, let's go."

The visit to the hospital was brief. The boy was sleeping and she didn't wake him. Once she was able to see him and run her hand over his cheek, it was easy to persuade her to leave.

Now that the worry that had been driving her was removed, she seemed asleep on her feet. He had to keep one hand on her arm to make sure that when she tripped or stumbled that she didn't fall. When he brought her to his bedroom in his uncle's house, he was sure that she was asleep before she was completely on the bed.

Minato sighed and pulled her shoes off.

"What am I going to do with you?"

Being asleep, she didn't answer him.

But the question still remained. Should he forgive her? Or should he just walk away?

She'd run off with no warning and left him to worry for years. She had never told him about Naruto and he had to wonder if she ever was going to tell him. And so he'd missed everything—the boy's birth, his first smile, first words, first steps, first everything—and not even known that he'd had anything to miss.

And yet…he was so relieved to see her again; to see that she was alright and not hurt or dead somewhere. She was with him again, if only for a little while, and the sense that he was missing something (or, in this case, someone) important that had been nagging at him for forever was gone. Now that she was here, he could get answers.

He really should wash his hands of her, but the idea made him squirm and he simply couldn't decide what really wanted.

_I need to clear my head._ Sighing, he tucked her in and left the house for the pokémon center. _I need to swap out Kyuubi for Kirin. A good ride should help me…_

* * *

When Kushina woke up, it took her a while to realize where she was. Sleep had been all but impossible on the way to Myouboku Town. Every time she tried to close her eyes her imagination would through horrible images at her—Naruto hurt, broken, bleeding—and she would be forced awake to escape them. Almost four straight days with no sleep left her brain fuzzy, her thoughts clouded, and her recollections of her trip hazy at best. But now that sleep had refreshed her brain, she could figure out where she was and review all that she'd done on her way to "here".

She was obviously in Minato's old room in Jiraiya's house. It was still a little boy's room with sun-faded posters taped to the walls, a small bed with pokéball-patterned sheets, and shelves lined with dusty books and kiddie collectables. Once Minato left to train pokémon, he wasn't living in this room anymore and evolving it with him as he grew up. And Jiraiya was no interior decorator—not that he was around enough to bother with the room anyway—so the room was left as Minato had left it when he started on his journey.

What she'd done to land herself here made her cringe.

_I'm mean to him. I give him the silent treatment. Then I cry all over him. And then there's all the stuff I didn't tell him, not to mention ditching him in the first place…_

She buried her face in her hands and groaned.

_I guess I'm lucky that Minato's so nice. If I were him, I would've made me sleep in a hotel…or outside._ She shivered and hugged herself. _But he's definitely mad at me… I woke up alone._

Shaking her head, she skulked out of his room. She'd slept all day and all night, making it early the next morning. Neither Minato nor Jiraiya seemed to be awake or around, and that made her relax a little as she stole into the shower. Of course, in her haste to pack and get to Myouboku, she hadn't packed any toiletries so she was stuck using Jiraiya's supplies.

_At least with his long hair, he has good shampoo and conditioner._ She smirked slightly as she washed. _I'm sure that his hair is still longer than mine…_

Clean, and in fresh clothes, she headed down the stairs to face the music…or whatever he was going to make her face.

Minato was passed out on the living room couch. It looked like he'd spent the whole night there instead of sleeping with her, or in Jiraiya's room. When she crept up to him, she found that he smelled like smoke.

_He hasn't picked up smoking, has he?_ She frowned at that thought. _I'll kick his butt if he has, because then Naruto will want to, too._

A faint orange glow that had nothing to do with the rising sun brought her attention to the front window. Peeking outside, she found Kirin the rapidash placidly grazing on the front lawn, a bridle and reins still fastened to her head. She wore no saddle as Minato always rode her bareback. A saddle was just too big and bulky to carry on the road, and a pain to remove for using her in battle, so he'd never used one.

_Oh, he just went riding._

Pontya and rapidash seemed impossible to ride because of their flaming manes and tails, but if the fire horses trusted you their fires wouldn't cause burns. It was an eerie experience to ride one and have the fire blow in your face, but only feel warm instead of searing hot. But long rides still left the human rider smelling like smoke.

Kushina took a minute to finger Minato's hair before slipping into the kitchen. It was filled with bachelor food—frozen dinners and anything that was "instant". But she did find some milk that was still good, non-moldy bread, eggs, and bacon. So she started making breakfast for two. If Jiraiya was around, he'd have to make his own breakfast.

Halfway through cooking, Minato shuffled into the room, rubbing the gritty sleep from his eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied, her eyes fixed firmly on her cooking. "I'm making breakfast."

"You…really don't have to do that."

She took a moment to rein in her temper (because she really had no business getting mad at him) before responding. "I've learned how to cook. I swear that I won't kill you with food poisoning this time."

He didn't say anything and eventually she heard the scraping sound of him pulling out a chair to sit down. "…So, did you sleep well?"

"I slept like the dead," she answered. "But what about you? I'm sure that your uncle wouldn't care if you stole his bed for the night instead of using the couch."

"I'll never sleep in his bed," Minato swore. "Who knows how many 'dates' he's had there?"

Kushina shuddered at that. Jiraiya, being a man, probably didn't wash his sheets half as much as he should. And well…it was Jiraiya. She'd rather not know what he did in his own room, and who he might do it with.

"Point," she agreed and dished up the cooked eggs and bacon on two plates. "Very good point." The bread popped out of the toaster and she added it to the plates before bringing it to the kitchen table. "You know, you could've made me sleep on the floor and kept the bed for yourself."

"You don't make guests sleep on the floor," he shrugged and eyed his plate suspiciously.

"You're too polite, Sunshine," she muttered as she sprinkled some salt and pepper on her scrambled eggs. "You know I don't deserve it."

A tense silence fell over the table. Kushina was the first to eat. When Minato saw that the food wasn't toxic, he tentatively consumed his own food. It was only when they'd finished and Kushina started washing the dishes in the sink that they started talking again.

"Speak already," she muttered as she scrubbed angrily at the egg skillet. "You had a million questions yesterday."

"Alright," he sighed. "Why did you leave?"

"I got scared," she mumbled. "You were close to achieving your dream, and getting famous. I was barely twenty and that morning I'd just found out that…that I was pregnant. I was a basket case and I just used that argument as an excuse to run. Of course I couldn't outrun this problem; it just went with me wherever I ran."

"…You thought of him as a problem?"

"At the time, yes I did," she nodded slowly. "A baby was the last thing that I wanted, or was ready for. I didn't know anything about babies. I was scared out of my mind."

"You didn't have to keep him."

She shot him a glare. "I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that."

The blonde man flinched at her look. "Yeah… Were you ever going to tell me about him?"

"I…I really don't know," she said, dropping her eyes into the soapy sink.

"What sort of answer is that?" he demanded sharply.

"It's my answer," she shot back. "When Naruto was born, all I could think about was how to take care of him and not royally screw it up. He was three years old when I finally had enough time to myself to think about other things. I was afraid that I'd waited too long, that you would be angry with me for not letting you know what was going on right away." She turned completely away from him, unable to look him in the face. "I could never make up my mind on what I should do. So I did nothing. …I was afraid that you'd hate me."

He stayed silent for what felt like forever. "…Does he know anything about me?"

"Nothing beyond what he's seen on TV," she replied quietly. "I could never think of any way to explain myself. I could never decide what to tell him. So I never gave any details about my old adventures or any of the people that I used to run with. And…I just didn't want to remember."

"…I see." His voice was cold, and she shivered. "I'm going to go take a shower. You go do what you want. That's what you always do."

Kushina didn't dare move until he'd vanished upstairs to take his shower. When she heard the faint sound of the bathroom door closing, she hurried out of Jiraiya's house. She paused only long enough to pet Kirin before she hurried off to the hospital and Naruto.

_He hates me._ She rubbed at her stinging eyes. _And I have only myself to blame._

* * *

Not even an icy blast of water in the shower helped cool Minato's raging emotions. He was feeling so much it was hard to sort out all the different emotions. He didn't know if he wanted to scream or cry or just curse until he lost his voice.

He needed another ride.

Hair still wet from the shower, and his shirt sticking to his damp torso, he jogged out to his rapidash who was still staring down the street into town. Kushina had probably headed to the hospital to see Naruto. He clenched his jaw and approached the horned fire-horse.

"Kirin, I need another ride."

The horse pokémon eyed him for a moment before turning so that he could climb aboard easier.

Minato vaulted onto her back and immediately urged her beyond the fringes of town at high speed. Soon they were racing through the trees and down the mountain at a blistering pace. Kirin's blazing mane practically blinded him, but he didn't care. All that mattered was that he was going fast.

It was no secret that he loved speed. It was probably the only reckless thing about him. He'd always loved to run, or ride something fast. Jiraiya-oji-san started jokingly referred to him as _Kiroi Senkou_—the Yellow Flash. As soon as Kushina had heard about it, she added it to her long list of nicknames for him. And it just spread from there. Now it was something of an unofficial title tacked on to his name, as many of his battles were over quickly and decisively.

_She never told me… She never told him… And all because she was afraid and indecisive?!_

Kirin tossed her head and leapt over a ravine, but the thrill of the jump was lost on him.

_I was right about her the first day that I ever met her,_ he thought bitterly. _I'm cursed with the memory of her forever and ever… If only I could forget._

* * *

Naruto thought that he was dreaming when he opened his eyes and found his mother sitting at his bedside. But no matter how many times he blinked, she didn't disappear. She just sat there staring out the window and looking upset.

"Mom?"

She turned to him and smiled, although it didn't seem a completely happy smile. "Good morning. How are you feeling?"

"Okay." Naruto carefully sat up to avoid making his ribs hurt. "What are you doing here?"

She raised a red eyebrow at him. "What, you don't want to see your mother anymore?"

"No, no, of course I want to see you, Mom!" Naruto yelped. "But…you came all the way out here to see me?"

"Of course!" She leaned over and gently hugged him. "Why wouldn't I? I got a phone call that you were hurt and I came right over."

"You didn't have to," Naruto muttered in embarrassment, picking at his sheets. "I'm okay."

"Well I just had to see that for myself," she said and ruffled his spiky yellow hair. "Now tell me, are the nurses and doctors here nice?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Hey Mom? Do you know where my stuff is? And my pokémon?"

"I'm sure that the hospital staff is hanging on to your things until they release you," she answered. "And your pokémon should be waiting for you at the center. We'll go get them as soon as you get out of here. I want to meet all your little beasties in person."

"Okay." Naruto scratched at the back of his head. "Mom…how long will you stay?"

"As long as you need me to," she smiled. "Maybe I'll even stick around to see your gym challenge. It's been a while since I've seen one of those."

Naruto gulped nervously at that. "Really?"

"Relax! I'm not that scary, am I? Besides," she leaned over and kissed his scarred cheek, "your poor, lonely mother needs something to do."

"_Mom_!" Naruto groaned and rubbed at the spot that she'd kissed. "…Fine. You can watch if you want."

She grinned. "Aw, thank you!"

Naruto half-grinned back and rubbed at his bandaged wrist.

_I just hope she doesn't embarrass me in front of the gym leader…_


	4. Part IV

**Falling Down**_  
Part IV_

When Jiraiya strolled through his front door, he was greeted with the sight of his beloved nephew sprawled out face-down on the couch. It was always wonderful to get a visit from Minato, especially now that he was getting to be so reclusive, trekking off into distant wildernesses to avoid people whenever he could. But Jiraiya had never encountered the younger man in such a state.

"Er, Minato?"

The blonde grunted, but otherwise had no reaction.

Jiraiya dropped his bag by the door and walked up to him to poke him in the shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," the young man sighed, rolling over on to his side. "How was your trip?"

"It was good," Jiraiya grinned, taking a seat on the couch arm. "I headed down to Southport and caught a nice cruise to another continent. You should have seen the babes on that boat! There was one chick who would've given Tsunade-hime a run for her money!" The white-haired man sighed fondly at the memory.

"Anyway, when we reached our destination, I met this foreign gym leader. I almost thought he was you for a minute! But then the arrogant brat opened his mouth and I could tell he wasn't you at all. He called himself 'Volkner' or something—I bet it was some kind of nickname, it sounds too stupid to be real. Have you ever heard of him before?"

"No," Minato answered dully.

Jiraiya frowned at him. "…Are you sure you're okay?"

"I've just had a bad week," Minato answered.

"Oh?" the older man prompted.

"I don't want to talk about it," was the blonde's response.

"Alright. Well, I kept my eye out for Kushina, but I didn't see anything."

Minato's jaw tensed. "I know where she is."

"Eh?!" Jiraiya blinked. "…You do?!"

"Yes," the younger man grimaced.

It took a moment for Jiraiya to reorder his thoughts. "Where is she?!"

"Probably visiting at the hospital."

"The hospital?!' Jiraiya choked.

Minato abruptly sat up and stalked towards the door. "I'm going for a ride."

"But…what—"

The front door slammed closed and Minato was gone.

Jiraiya scratched at his messy white hair. _I think I'm missing something here…_

"…Well," he said to the empty air. "I'm not going to find answers sitting here. Maybe little Kushina-chan will be more enlightening."

And so he headed for the hospital.

* * *

Naruto frowned as he dug through the box that the nurse had brought him. It was supposed to contain his "personal effects". But as he went through the stuff, he found that a few things were missing.

The clothes that he'd been wearing on his way to Myouboku Town were gone. One of the three great-balls (those were expensive so he kept careful track of them) that he'd purchased in Saru City was missing. His backpack wasn't there. And his pokédex was nowhere to be found.

_At least I still have my shoes,_ he thought as he pulled the scuffed gym shoes out of the bottom of the box. _But what's this stuff?_

While his old orange-and-blue backpack was gone, there was a brand new black-and-blue pack that still had the plastic tie on it that would've attached the price tag. Cautiously opening one of the compartments in the new bag, he found the patches that he'd decorated his old bag with, including the white spiral patch and the red fire kanji. And, in addition to his spare clothes, he found some clothes that were about his size, but not his.

_Did they give me some of somebody else's stuff?_ He fingered the embroidered white spiral patch, baffled. _But…how did my patches get in this bag?_

"So, is everything there?"

Naruto looked up from the box to find his mother returning with some papers and a bottle of pills in her hand.

"No," he answered. "What's in the bottle?"

"Painkillers for your ribs," she told him. "What's missing?"

Naruto listed the things and showed her the mysterious backpack and clothes.

"Well…I'd heard that your pokédex was damaged…so it's probably in some repair shop. We can track that down later. And I'm sure that your clothes and bag were destroyed in your fall from the trail…and your great-ball could've been lost then." She fingered the mystery backpack. "…I guess this is a replacement for your old bag." And then she turned her attention to the clothes. "…And these are meant to replace your ruined outfit."

Naruto studied the thin white hoodie sweatshirt and wrinkled his nose at it. "It smells like mothballs."

"He probably kept it in the attic," his mother muttered, as if to herself.

"He?" the boy frowned.

"Let's get you out of these hospital pajamas," she smiled, firmly changing the subject.

It hurt to raise his arms too high or bend over all the way so she had to help him like he was some little baby that couldn't dress himself. She tried to get him into one of his spare outfits, but frowned at what she saw when she finished.

"You've been growing," she remarked. "This stuff doesn't really fit anymore. How have your shoes been feeling?"

"Fine," he answered. "Not too tight or anything."

"Hmm. We can wait to get shoes a bit later, but we'll have to find you some more clothes."

"No," Naruto moaned as his mother carefully peeled the T-shirt off. "I hate shopping."

"Too bad; it's a necessary evil," she sighed and grabbed the mothball-smelling mystery clothes. "Let's see how these fit."

Naruto grimaced, but let his mother put the clothes on him. The clothes were at least one size bigger than his usual clothes, so they fit better—they were even a little baggy on him. But they were so _boring._ There was no orange at all, just khaki pants, a blue T-shirt, and a white hoodie with thin blue stripes down the arms. And it all smelled musty and mothball-y.

"That fits nice," she smiled.

"I don't like it," he pouted. "I look stupid."

"No you don't!" She pulled his fingerless gloves and goggles out of the box. "Look, you still have these. No damage, your goggles didn't crack."

Naruto put the goggles up on his forehead to help keep his bangs out of his eyes. He put the right glove on, but stuck the left one in his pocket. His left wrist wasn't wrapped in bandages anymore, but he had to wear a black leather and plastic brace to keep it from moving until the sprain healed.

"There!" His mother gave him an appraising look and nodded at what she found. "You look very handsome. Now let's get out of her and find your monsters."

"Yeah," Naruto eagerly agreed.

His mother loaded his stuff into the new bag and then he shuffled after her through the hospital hallways and out into the bright sunlight. She led the way to the pokémon center, carrying the bag for him so he wouldn't aggravate his sore ribs. But they had barely gone a block before their trek was interrupted.

"Kushina-chan?"

She stopped short and looked over her shoulder at a towering man with long white hair and red lines tattooed vertically down his cheeks. He was an older guy and made himself even taller with old-style wooden platform sandals. The man also favored older style clothes—drab green clothes and red _hoari_-like vest—which made the guy look like some crazy mountain-man hermit.

"…Yes, Jiraiya?" she sighed.

"You grew out your hair?!" the man sputtered in disbelief.

Naruto tugged on the sleeve of his mother's yellowish leather jacket. "You know this guy, Mom?"

"_Mom?!_" the man yelped, his eyes immediately darting down to Naruto. And then his face paled and his jawed dropped. After a long stare that made Naruto squirm, the white-haired jerked his eyes back to his mother. "You-you _slept with him?!_"

"Why don't you just shout that from the rooftops?" she muttered bitterly back at the man.

"But you…and he…and…"

"…Come back when you have something intelligible to say to me," his mother grumbled and took Naruto by his uninjured hand. "In the meantime, we have things to do."

The strange, white-haired man kept sputtered as the two of them continued on for several blocks towards the pokémon center.

"Mom, who was that guy?" Naruto asked curiously.

"That was Jiraiya," she muttered tensely. "He's the gym leader here. He was off on vacation…but I guess he's back now."

"You know this gym leader, too?"

"Yes," his mother nodded.

Naruto tilted his head curiously. "How many gym leaders do you know?"

"A few others," she answered. "It's been a while since I was on the road so I don't know how many of the gym leaders that I challenged are still at it. Tsunade and Orochimaru for sure, but as for the rest…I don't know."

"Oh."

The rest of their walk to the pokémon center was uneventful, if a bit slow. It took a little while to get the attendants at the counter to retrieve his pokémon as he didn't have his pokédex to prove his identity and he wasn't the person who had them checked in. But eventually he was brought a tray with all six pokéballs on it…and his missing great-ball.

Picking up the blue-and-white sphere, it felt slightly heavier, indicating that there was something in it. But, if there was something in it, it would count as he seventh pokémon, and it should've disappeared to Professor Sarutobi's shortly after being captured. Naruto was left scratching his head as his mother led him away from the counter so that other trainers could submit their teams for treatment.

"Well if you captured it after your pokédex was broken, it wouldn't get automatically sent away," his mother explained as they sat down on some of the couches near the front door. "Until your pokédex is fixed and reset, that pokémon and anything else you might catch in the meantime won't go anywhere. Or you can go to a computer terminal in the center and manually send it off."

"…But I don't remember catching anything," Naruto muttered with a frown as he eyed the great-ball suspiciously. "I barely remember falling off the trail."

"That could be a side effect of your concussion," she mused. "Maybe if you let it out and see what it is, you'll remember."

"Maybe," he muttered dubiously.

"Well, I want to see all your beasties," his mother grinned. "Seeing them on a video phone is one thing; seeing them in person is so much better."

"Okay," Naruto eagerly agreed.

"Naruto?"

The blonde boy turned his head, and saw a familiar girl.

"Sakura-chan?" He blinked. "You cut your hair?"

"Yeah," she winced and self-consciously brushed at her now shoulder-length pink hair. "I got something really sticky in it that I could get out, so I had to cut it."

"…It looks nice," Naruto decided. "Your hair always looks nice." _Girls like lots of compliments, right?_

The girl wrinkled her nose. "Thanks, I guess. I—" She did a double-take when she spied his mother sitting next to him. "Mrs. Uzumaki?!"

"I'm not married," the red-haired woman sighed tiredly. "I've told you that dozens of times, Sakura. I'm 'Miss Uzumaki' or 'Uzumaki-san' or 'Kushina-san', never '_Mrs_. Uzumaki'."

"Sorry," Sakura squeaked in embarrassment.

"Your mother is here, _Dobe_?" Sasuke snorted, appearing behind the pink-haired girl. "…And what happened to your face?"

"Yes," Sakura blinked with a concerned look. "What happened to you? It looks like someone beat you up."

Naruto self-consciously touching the yellowish trace of fading bruises on the left side of his face and the scabs from his fall. "I slipped off one of the hiking trails," he muttered.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted.

"Naruto," Sakura sighed, as if he'd done it on purpose. "You could've really hurt yourself."

Naruto slumped as low as his throbbing ribs would let him. "…I did."

"That explains why you mother is here," Sasuke said, sparing the woman a nod that was too brief to be completely polite.

"Yeah," Naruto grunted, embarrassed. "Where's Sai?"

When he encountered his old classmates back in Shinobi Town, Sakura, Sasuke, and Sai were traveling partners. Naruto had headed straight for Kunoichi Town straight after earning the Copy badge from Kakashi and he hadn't run into the trio since. It was nice to see them again, he just wished that they hadn't shown up when he was such a mess—it was embarrassing.

"He went his own way after Kunoichi Town," Sasuke muttered.

"He got a phone call and then made this weird announcement to us—that it was time he went his own way—and then he just left," Sakura shrugged.

"Weird," Naruto frowned.

"I always thought that boy was a strange one," his mother muttered. "I'd bet money that it was his 'uncle' that called him and told him what to do. Danzou always had that boy on a tight leash from what I could see."

"Do you have _seven_ pokéballs there?" Sasuke asked with a frown, noting the extra great-ball in Naruto's lap.

"My pokédex got broken," the blonde stiffly shrugged.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the collection of minimized spheres. "…What do you have?"

Naruto hesitated. "Er…" …_How can I tell him that I don't know what number seven is?_

"Why don't we go outside? Get some fresh air?" his mother abruptly suggested with a smile. "I know the perfect place to let all your beasts out for a little exercise."

* * *

After a quick lunch at an out-of-the-way café and some walking, his mother led the three of them to a small mountain meadow a few minutes' walk out of town. There was a stream that was wide enough and deep enough for a gyarados to swim around comfortably running through it. The place was just as his mother promised it would be.

"Alright!" the red-haired woman clapped her hands and released her vaporeon. "Let's see what we've got!"

Naruto decided to go by seniority and set Demon loose first. The vulpix looked at him for a long moment, looked to his mother and Uzu-chan, glanced briefly at Sakura and Sasuke, and went about sniffing around the meadow. Sakura produced her bulbasaur and Sasuke released his charmander. Except…his charmander had evolved since Naruto had last seen it, so it was now a larger, fiercer charmeleon.

From there, Naruto set free Bolt. The pikachu seemed baffled that he mother was there in the flesh and not behind a video screen, but she soon had him in her lap and melted into a yellow puddle from her soothing touch. Sakura freed her wurmple, which was now fully evolved into a beautifly that happily fluttered around, examining the meadow's flowers. Sasuke set his shinx, which was now a smug-looking luxio, out and the electric type seemed to sneer at the pikachu luxuriating under the older Uzumaki's touch.

Next came Typhoon, the mighty gyarados. His mother almost dropped Bolt in her hurry to fuss over the magnificent blue sea serpent. She was so distracted in admiring the beast, she barely noticed Sakura's pink little happiny or Sasuke's larvitar. Naruto grinned, pleased at his show-stealing monster.

The next round had Sasuke releasing his zubat, Sakura sending out her cherubi (which was now a cherrim), and Naruto set free Shadow. Or…what should've been Shadow. He stared at the umbreon that sat before him blankly.

"Oh, your eevee evolved into an umbreon?" Sakura asked, hugging her un-bloomed cherrim.

"Er…" The umbreon walked right up to him and rubbed its head against his side. "…I guess."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You guess?"

"It must have happened not long after you fell," his mother suggested while Uzu-chan got herself acquainted with what she might've become had she not been exposed to a water stone.

"How could you forget one of your pokémon evolving just because you tumbled off a trail?" Sakura asked skeptically.

"I got a concussion," Naruto pouted. "Does that flower pokémon always look so droopy?"

"No," Sakura glared slightly. "Cherry, use _sunny day_."

The grass pokémon with the concealing purple petals started to glow with a faint red aura. The few clouds in the sky seemed to fade and the sunlight brightened and the air grew warmer. The cherrim's purple petals lightened to a pale pink and its hidden pink body turned a bright yellow. The petals lifted, revealing a pixy-like body and a smiling face crowned with pink sakura-like petals. Hanging around its neck was a brown rock with red crystals jutting out of it.

Naruto cocked his head at it. "It blooms during _sunny day_? And what's it holding?"

"That's a heat rock," Sakura informed him. "It makes _sunny day _last longer. And yes, Cherry does bloom in strong sunlight, and her special ability boosts her attack and her partner's attack when she's this way, too!"

The bright sunlight brought on by the _sunny day_ didn't just make the cherrim bloom. Sasuke's charmeleon and Demon drank in the bright light and heat. If they were to go into battle now with the sun shining so brightly, their fires would be twice as hot.

"Well, let's go on to who's next!" Naruto grinned. "Gamakichi!"

The poisonous fighter made a dramatic entrance, clapping his hands over his head and striking a fighting pose. Sakura set out a fluffy little eevee of her own, which quickly trotted over to Uzu-chan and Shadow. And Sasuke released an elekid, a yellow and black critter that looked like it had a giant electrical plug coming out of its head.

"You trudged through a marsh?" Sakura asked. "That's were croagunk's live, right?"

"Nah, I got Gamakichi from Gai-sensei's Fighting Pokémon Dojo just outside Saru City," Naruto grinned. "I really impressed him and he let me pick out one of the fighting pokémon that was attracted to his dojo. Did you guys ever go there?"

"No, Sasuke-kun didn't want to," Sakura shrugged.

"That place wasn't a real gym," Sasuke muttered. "There was no badge to win, so what would be the point of wasting time there?"

"Just because there's no official badge to earn, it doesn't mean that you could still learn something important there," Naruto's mother pointed out as she offered a candy to the croagunk.

"Hn," Sasuke growled.

"Hey, Naruto?" Sakura frowned in thought. "I know you were in Shinobi Town, and I heard that you were in Kunoichi Town and Saru City, but when Sasuke-kun and I were in Silk Town we didn't hear that you'd been there."

"What's in Silk Town?" Naruto asked.

"A gym," Sasuke replied simply.

"I think one of Shino's uncles ran it. It was crawling with bug pokémon," the pink-haired girl said with a shiver.

"Nah, I never went there," Naruto explained. "After visiting Gai-sensei's dojo, I went to Suna City in _Kaze no Kuni_ and challenged the gym there. That's where I got Sandy."

To punctuate his statement, he let out Sandy the trapinch. The tan insect-like creature had an enormous head which was as big as the rest of its body. She jumped up in the air several times, as if trying to fly, but her stubby legs didn't give her much lift.

"A trapinch?" Sasuke muttered, squinting at it.

"It looks creepy," Sakura shuddered. "It's a desert pokémon?"

"Yeah," Naruto grinned and patted the ground-type's large head. "She used to belong to the gym leader there, but he was kind of creepy and she was afraid of him. After I helped the guy out, he gave her to me as a present."

"…So you got a reject pokémon?" Sasuke smirked.

"Shut up!" Naruto snapped with a glare. "There is nothing wrong with Sandy! Don't you listen to him," he quietly coached the trapinch. "He doesn't know anything about great pokémon."

"Yes I do," Sasuke huffed. "I only collect the best kinds of pokémon."

"Like what?" Naruto scowled.

"Like this," the Uchiha answered and set loose his final pokémon.

It was a small blue lizard creature. It stood upright and had stubby little front arms. And it had bony ridges on its head like a helmet.

"A _bagon_?!" Naruto yelped.

"Aa," Sasuke smirked smugly.

"We spent months combing through these mountains looking for it," Sakura sighed and set free her own final pokémon, a rather angry-looking mankey. "It's so nice to finally be back in a civilized place."

"Well, I've got a…" Naruto stared at the great-ball in his hand. "…A something."

"Show us," his mother urged. "I'm really curious!"

The blonde boy hesitated, then held down the button, snapping the sphere open. A burst of white light escaped to several feet away and coalesced into a shape. It was purple and spiky and floating over the ground. It cringed at the stinging bright light caused by the _sunny day_ and hissed as it tried to shield its eyes from the glare with its disconnected hands.

The mystery pokémon was a haunter.

Naruto promptly screamed.


	5. Part V

**Falling Down**_  
Part V_

Kushina winced at the sight of the haunter and Naruto's inevitable reaction. Of all the pokémon that could've been inside the great-ball, it just _had_ to be a ghost-type. She certainly hadn't expected to see one; Naruto had a moderate phobia of ghosts. So how did a haunter come to be in his possession?

The ghost flinched at Naruto's almost girlish scream, but was too absorbed in cringing at the bright sunlight to do anything else. Ghost types were naturally nocturnal; it had probably never been exposed to the sun, let alone the effects of a _sunny day_. Kushina sighed and went over to hug her son and keep him from spiraling into a panic attack.

When he'd been small, she'd made the mistake of letting him watch some horror movies on TV. Even though they had been edited for language and the more graphic bits of violence, they were still very frightening. And most of those movies had involved ghost pokémon preying on humans. No matter how many times she assured him that the ghosts in the movies were just trained actors, and that the blood wasn't real, he was still terrified of them and it had taken a ban on ghost-movies and several months to get him sleeping in his own bed by himself.

Naruto's umbreon immediately put itself between the haunter and its master to protect him. The rest of her son's pokémon closed ranks around him to defend him from the ghost that frightened him. Well, except for the vulpix, who just seemed rather baffled by what was going on.

"Where did you get that?" Sasuke asked, eying the ghost warily.

"Eep!" Sakura squeaked, hiding behind her Uchiha crush and clinging tightly to her bloomed cherrim.

"Make it go away!" Naruto whimpered, clinging on to her arm with a death grip. "It's going to eat my soul!"

"No, it's not going to eat your soul," Kushina said as patiently as she could. "Look at it, it can barely see in the daylight. It won't hurt you."

"It's going to possess me!" Naruto panicked. "Make it leave!"

"Naruto…"

Kushina bit her lip in concentration as she tried to figure out how a ghost pokémon could wind up in one of her son's pokéballs. With his memory still thoroughly blank between his fall and waking up in the hospital, she doubted that he could answer that question. And that left only one person who _might_ know how this happened…

_…Crap._

"Alright," she muttered and pulled a pokéball from her belt to release its contents. "Hoshi!"

The large purple starfish appeared in a flash of light and made a strange cooing sound.

"Hoshi, I want you to find me Sunshine," she instructed the psychic starfish. "Lure him with your _illuminate_ ability, chase him with your _swift_, do whatever you have to, to get him here. Go!"

Hoshi made its strange cry and lifted off the ground with its psychic powers and hovered for a moment. Its faceted gem flashed in an eerie senseless pattern. And then it spun off into the trees in a seemingly random direction without any warning.

"…'Sunshine'?" the Uchiha boy muttered in the silence.

"Who would name their kid that?" the Haruno girl wondered.

Kushina ignored the stupid questions and focused on trying to calm her son down.

"Naruto." She grabbed her face with both hands and forced the boy to look at her instead of staring at the source of his fear. "Relax. That haunter isn't going to do anything to you. It's the middle of the day and ghost pokémon don't like being out in the sun. No one is going to let it touch you. And besides, Shadow is an umbreon now; he can protect you with his dark-type powers. Okay?"

Naruto trembled. "Y-you sure?"

"I'm sure," she said with a firm nod. "Everything's fine. Just relax."

Her son slowly turned to peer at the ghost from the corner of his eye. The haunter had sunk down to only a few inches off the ground and was futilely shading its eyes from the power of _sunny day_, squinting comically. He shuddered and looked away from it.

"Why do I have that thing?" he asked, still shivering. "I hate ghosts—I'd never catch one!"

"That is what I hope to find out when Hoshi gets back from its errand…"

* * *

Minato stared blankly off into space as Kirin walked the winding trails south of Myouboku. There was no way that his rapidash could run as much as he needed her to. If he tried to race her until he finally felt calm, she would've keeled over and died. And there was really no sense in punishing his pokémon for something that they hadn't had anything to do with.

_What the hell was she thinking? That if she ignored things, that her problems would just resolve themselves? Or was she thinking at all?_

The tangled knot in his chest tightened and he wrung the loose reins in his hands. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to hit her. He never wanted her to leave. He never wanted to see her again. He felt conflicted and it left him almost sick.

_Kushina…_

Kirin reared suddenly with a cry and Minato nearly tumbled to the ground. "Whoa! Whoa girl! What's wrong?"

The rapidash settled down and Minato found a starmie floating in the middle of the trail, its central gem glowing with an attractive light.

"…Hoshi?"

The starmie's gem pulsed twice.

Minato scowled. "She sent you to fetch me, didn't she?"

Another two light pulses.

"Well…that's too bad. I'm not interested."

Hoshi's crystal went dark for a moment, and then the gem glowed white and sprayed glowing stars at the trail, forcing Kirin to leap backwards.

"Damn it!" Minato swore. "Alright! Enough! I'll come!"

The _swift_ attack immediately cut off and the starmie went back to using its _illuminate_ ability on them, drifting off the trail and calling eerily to them.

"Great," Minato muttered sourly and urged Kirin to follow with a twitch of the reins. "She had better have a really good reason for this…"

The starmie led them on a winding path through the trees and up the slope back towards town. Just before reaching the fringes, the starfish turned and traveled around the edge to the east. The little game of follow-the-starmie ended in the high meadow that he used to hang out in a lot as child and read his adventure books.

The first time that Kushina had followed him home to Myouboku, he'd shown it to her before he'd even given her a tour of the town.

But she wasn't alone in the meadow. The boy—Naruto—was with her. And two other children—a boy and girl—that he didn't recognize. And several groups of pokémon as well.

Minato pulled Kirin up short at the edge of the trees as a surge of nerves hit him.

He'd only encountered Naruto twice before. The first time the boy had been hurt and unconscious and he'd had no idea of the boy's significance. The second time he'd slipped into his hospital room after-hours and watched the kid sleep for a while as he tried to come to grips with what he'd learned. Naruto had briefly woken up then, but with his concussion it wasn't likely that he remembered anything. So what exactly would Minato find when he approached?

_…I don't know anything about him. And he doesn't know anything about me. He might as well just be another young fan._

Shaking his head, he slipped from Kirin's back and headed over to the cluster of humans and pokémon with his rapidash following after him.

The mystery girl looked vaguely interesting. She had short pink hair, which made him wonder if she was any relation to some of the pink-haired nurses that he tended to see in pokémon centers all over. The girl wore dark bike shorts under a red dress with white rings on it and a vague Chinese flavor to it.

The mystery boy looked to be one of the Uchiha. The red and white _uchiwa_ fan stitched on the back of his blue jacket was a dead giveaway to that. The sullen, arrogant aura that seemed to cling to him only furthered Minato's suspicions of him.

Kushina looked nice…but he pretty much always thought that she looked nice. She was a great deal more put together than she had when she first turned up on his doorstep several days earlier. Her long red hair was done up in a braid with only the shorter locks that framed her face loose. She dressed more femininely than she had when they'd first met, but she still stuck with jeans and sported a leather jacket.

And Naruto…was wearing his old clothes. Minato had dug some of his old clothing out of the attic where his uncle had stashed them to replace the boy's ruined outfit, but he hadn't expected to see Naruto in them quite so soon. It only heightened their close physical resemblance.

Then he noted the pokémon and how they were arranged in the meadow. The two other children's creatures didn't interest him nearly as much as Naruto's did. He recognized the vulpix, pikachu, croagunk, and umbreon from before. The trapinch and gyarados (of _course_ he had a gyarados) were new to him. And the haunter was several yards away, cowering under the brightness of what he suspected to be _sunny day_.

_Strange,_ he frowned as he approached from behind. _The way his pokémon are standing…it's like they're defending him against the haunter. But the haunter isn't being aggressive at all. And…why does he seem so afraid?_

_…Well, here goes nothing._

"Alright," he sighed when he was directly behind her. "What is it that you want?"

She flinched at his voice and muttered: "Sneaky bastard." Hoshi belatedly drifted through her line of vision. "Thanks for warning me…" Kushina stiffened up and turned around to face him, her jaw clenched, and pointed behind her at the haunter. "Could you explain that?"

Minato scratched at the back of his head while he gathered his thoughts. "Well…"

"Namikaze-sama?" the girl squeaked, her voice barely audible.

"…You call him 'Sunshine'?!" the dark-haired boy sputtered.

"I'd ask you to stop calling me that," Minato sighed wearily. "But I don't think that you can."

Her blue-green eyes flashed and she pointed again towards the haunter. "Explain…or I'll go back to 'Pretty Boy'…or '_Girly_'."

"What needs to be explained, exactly?" he asked tensely.

"Why does Naruto have that?" she demanded.

Minato eyed the haunter, which was still being quite docile. "…Is there something wrong with having a haunter?"

She growled and closed the two foot gap between them. "He's terrified of ghost-types!" she hissed into his ear angrily. "He doesn't want one! So why does he have one?"

His irritation with her quickly dissolved into intense awkward embarrassment. "…Oh."

While catching the haunter hadn't been planned, it should've been a good thing. When the hurt boy turned out to be…his son…catching the haunter for him was like a gift. It wasn't the best way to make up for a lifetime of missed birthdays, but it was certainly something. But finding out that Naruto was frightened of ghosts pretty much made his spontaneous gesture backfire.

Minato sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Whoops."

"Eh?" Kushina arched a red eyebrow. "You got that thing for him?"

"Accidentally," he muttered.

"…How can you capture a pokémon on accident?!"

"Um…" Minato jammed his hands in his pockets and stared uncomfortably at the grass.

The _sunny day_ finally waned, making the noon sky seem oddly dark despite the fact that there was barely a cloud in the sky.

Kushina crossed her arms over his chest and started tapping her foot. "Well?"

Gathering his nerve, he related the scene that he had encountered that night. He told her what the ghosts had been doing. And he described the spur-of-the-moment capture.

She listened without interruption, her face unreadable…which made him very uneasy.

"Naruto almost got eaten by ghosts?!" the pink-haired girl yelped, abruptly reminding Minato that there was an audience made up of more than pokémon.

"…Let me get this straight," Kushina said slowly. "You didn't just catch him a haunter, you caught him a _human-aggressive one?!_"

Minato flinched at her sharp tone. "It's a bad idea to release pokémon like that back into the wild. If Naruto wasn't so afraid of them, it wouldn't be as much of a problem. But since he is, I'll just arrange to trade with him."

"Alright," she sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose. "That…that could work. Naruto what do you… Naruto?"

Glancing around the meadow, Minato frowned at not seeing the blonde boy. He'd caught glimpses of the kid from the corners of his eyes as he'd talked. He'd seen the wide-eyed awe and felt at a loss as how to respond to it. He dealt with starry-eyed fans all the time, but his own son…who didn't know who his father was? Unsure of how to deal with that, he ignored the boy until he could determine a good way to approach him.

But at some point during his conversation with Kushina, Naruto had slipped away. Not even his pokémon had noticed his departure and now they were milling around in disarray. It was like the kid was part ninja.

"Where'd he go?" the dark-haired boy wondered.

"The haunter," the girl said. "…It's gone."

Sure enough, now that it wasn't blinded by the light of _sunny day_, the poisonous ghost had vanished.

"Hoshi!" Kushina called out. "Find Naru-chan! _Now!_"

* * *

Naruto couldn't really run; it hurt his ribs. So he just walked away as quickly as he could. He didn't stop until he found a large flat rock out in the woods where he sat down and rested.

Shadow had evolved…but he'd missed it. Watching a pokémon evolve was a special event. And he'd been looking forward to watching his eevee change form, no matter which one it was. Shadow had evolved somehow, but he had no idea when or how.

He had a haunter now. A ghost pokémon had been only feet away from him, not behind a TV screen. It was terrifying. And it was embarrassing. Sasuke and Sakura had seen how afraid he was—how much of a baby he still was. And Minato Namikaze…

Minato-sama, _the_ coolest pokémon trainer, had been even closer to him than the haunter. He'd seen the League Champion of _Hi no Kuni_ in the flesh. And that man had seen him being a huge chicken. Naruto was sure that he looked like the biggest loser the famous trainer had ever seen.

And his mother, she'd spoken to Minato-sama as if she knew him. She wasn't afraid of him (when was she ever afraid of _anything_?) or in awe of him. She'd yelled at him and threatened to label him with embarrassing nicknames. Hoshi had known him too, to have fetched him. And Minato-sama seemed to know her very well…

It was all like some dream-nightmare hybrid. It didn't feel real, and yet he knew he was awake and he'd watched everything unfold before his own eyes. So all of it _had _to be real.

When Minato-sama had admitted to getting the haunter in Naruto's great-ball, the boy just had to leave and try to work everything out before some other crazy revelation made his head spin even more.

_Nothing makes sense anymore…_

There was a tinkling sound, and then Demon hopped up onto the rock in front of him.

"What do you want?" Naruto muttered dully.

The vulpix simply stared up at him curiously.

"Why did you follow me, huh? You never care what I do."

The little fire fox didn't answer—he couldn't—he just kept staring.

And then eerie laughter drifted through the dense trees.

The hairs on the back of Naruto's neck stood on end as his blue eyes rapidly darted around at the shadowy and suddenly threatening forest. This always happened in the movies. The ghost would appear from the shadows or from thin air. It would eat the human, drink their blood; or it would possess them and make them kill their friends and family while they were helpless to stop it. The fear made him cold, made him sweat, made it hard to breathe.

The haunter drifted out of a solid tree trunk, its floating hands reaching towards him and tongue lolling out of its mouth hungrily.

Naruto froze, terrified but unable to move as the ghost floated closer and closer.

The vulpix snarled and spat an eerily bluish fire-orb with a hazy tail at the ghost. The _will-o-wisp_ wobbled in an unpredictable zigzag pattern before it struck the haunter on the hand. The ghost pokémon shrieked in pain as its ethereal body was burned and its eyes got all teary as the burn continued to cause it pain.

Seeing the ghost hurt broke the paralyzing spell that trapped Naruto. In the movies, the ghosts only were hurt by sunlight, if they could be hurt at all. Ghosts weren't afraid of anything and they loved being terrifying and cruel. They didn't cry when they were burned.

"H-hey," Naruto squeaked.

The haunter paused in its whimpers and sniffles to glance at him and Demon warily.

"Y-you sh-shouldn't scare people like that," Naruto gulped. "It's not nice."

It was stupid to be afraid of ghost pokémon. They were just like any other monster that could be captured and tamed. He was a pokémon trainer now, and too big to still be such a baby. And besides, Minato-sama had had a hand in this haunter's capture. That made it special, and he shouldn't be afraid of it.

"I…I think I'll c-call you Spooky…because…you know…you're a spooky ghost," Naruto babbled, rubbing his sweaty palms on his pant legs.

The ghost narrowed its eyes at him and cradled its injured hand close to its body.

"I…I don't have m-my bag…or I'd give you s-something for your burn." He glanced down at Demon. "Hey, could you find a rawst berry?"

Demon snorted at him.

"Well, it was a thought. It w-would be a nice thing to do, r-right? Because we're all f-friends here," he said with a weak grin. "Right?"

The haunter—Spooky—just kept staring at him like it couldn't believe what he was saying.

"Yeah, we'll be good friends!" Naruto decided, doing his best to inject as much enthusiasm as he could into his voice. "…Someday."

Spooky frowned and slowly drifted closer again.

Hoshi appeared then, placing itself between Naruto and the ghost. Bare seconds later, Typhoon lunged through the foliage, curling his serpentine body around Naruto in a defensive posture, his _intimidate_ making Spooky pull back with a nervous whine. Shadow arrived next, bursting from the shadows with Sandy riding on his back (there was just no way that the trapinch could run over a good stretch of distance with such stubby legs). Bolt and Gamakichi rounded out his team as they skidded onto the scene. All his pokémon circled in around the haunter, making the burned ghost hiss out of nervousness.

"Naruto!" his mother called as she ran up to him with Uzu-chan at her heels. "Naruto! Are you okay?"

The boy blinked, surprised. "Yeah, I'm okay."

She ran up to him and started frantically checking him over. "Are you sure? It didn't get too close to you, did it?"

"I'm okay," Naruto repeated. Sure he was kind of sweaty and shaky, but he wasn't hurt. "Mom, I'm fine." He turned to his pokémon. "You guys don't have to do that; I'm okay."

"Really?" Sasuke asked as he and his charmeleon caught up. "You seemed pretty scared earlier."

"Shut up," Naruto muttered with a pout.

"You guys…run too fast!" Sakura panted as she stumbled into view, still holding her cherrim, which had faded back into its un-bloomed state with the _sunny day_ over.

"Are you sure you're okay, Naru-chan?" his mother asked worriedly.

"Yeah, Mom—don't call me that!" Naruto shrugged off her hands and tugged the musty-smelling white hoodie on tighter. "I'm not a baby anymore."

"Are you sure?" Sasuke jabbed.

"_Teme_!" Naruto growled.

The haunter suddenly materialized behind the Uchiha and poked the boy with its un-burned hand. Sasuke let out an undignified squawk and ducked away from the ghost, nearly stepping on his charmeleon's tail in the process. Naruto broke out in a fit of (slightly hysterical) giggles.

_Heh, who's the baby now?!_

The ghost seemed pleased with Sasuke's reaction, but winced in pain from its burn. Naruto managed to get his giggles under control and took his new (lame) bag from his mother's shoulder. As he was trying to get to where he stored his berries to find a rawst berry, Spooky got curious and drew closer, making Naruto's hands tremble and all his other pokémon grow defensive.

"I-I'm o-okay," he squeaked. _The air…it feels cold…_ "I just-I need—"

A hand offered him a rawst berry and he took it, giving up on trying to grip the zipper. Swallowing hard, he held the blue strawberry-like bit of fruit towards the ghost. Spooky extended a hand, snatched the berry, and devoured it in one gulp. The purple creature marveled as the pain of its burn eased, and the wound itself faded.

"There." Naruto let out a shaky sigh. "All better…"

"Not bad," a man's voice said. "Not everyone is so willing to face what frightens them, Naruto."

The blonde boy turned around to see who was speaking…and nearly had a heart attack.

Minato-sama had come to find him, too. Even though he was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt instead of his iconic white buttoned shirt with red flames, there was no mistaking him. He looked super awesome with his magnificent rapidash standing by his side.

_Ah, when did he get behind me? What is he—a ninja?!_

And then something hit him.

_…He knows my name?_


	6. Part VI

**Falling Down**_  
Part VI_

Minato really was impressed. Naruto had clearly been terrified by the haunter initially, but on his second encounter he was willing to try and work past his fear. He knew grown men who were less able to face what frightened them. And it was a smart thing to do; it would be unfortunate if Naruto faced a trainer who had a ghost pokémon and fell apart upon seeing it.

_But…why is he staring at me like that?_ Minato wondered as Naruto looked at him with a pale face and very wide-eyes. _It's like __**I'm**__ suddenly the ghost pokémon instead of the haunter…_

The haunter, seeing the boy distracted, floated closer and put its hands on Naruto's shoulders. Naruto yelped and bolted forward…straight into Minato. If Kirin's body hadn't helped brace him, Minato would've gotten knocked over.

"Cold hands!" Naruto whimpered into Minato's sweatshirt as he trembled.

Minato was rather stunned at first, but tentatively put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Ghost pokémon do have cold hands…well, those that _have _hands."

Naruto tensed at the sound of his voice and stumbled away, going back to being awed almost to the point of fear. Minato had seen it before. Some fans got excited upon meeting him in person; they would get talkative and loud and overwhelming. But some just shut down, unable to believe that they were meeting him—some would even run away from him.

From what he could see, Naruto fell into the latter class of admirers.

_…Great._

"I'm sorry," Minato grinned nervously, "did I startle you?"

The boy choked out a feeble squeak.

_Well,_ Minato swallowed, _this is awkward…_

Kushina intervened then. She caught Naruto by the arm and towed him to the side, pinching his ear to snap him out of his daze. After a few quick whispers, she straightened up and gave the boy an amused yet exasperated look.

"Yes, Naruto," she said slowly. "He knows your name. He found you out in the wilds and carried you into town and then he found out my phone number and called me, which is how I found out where you were and that you were in the hospital. Okay?"

"Oh…" Naruto rubbed at the back of his head.

"Um, Uzumaki-san?" the pink-haired girl piped up hesitantly. "You…know Namikaze-sama? I mean—you called him 'Sunshine' and…"

"Sure, I know him," the red-head snorted. "Who doesn't? He's on TV all the time."

"But…you never watch him when he's on TV," Naruto said.

That stung…a lot. Minato hoped that whenever one of his battles was broadcast (or re-broadcast) on television that she would see him and be inspired to contact him. Or at least remember him fondly if she'd moved on from him. But she _never watched_?!

"You don't like watching my fights anymore?" he asked with a pout.

Kushina flinched. "…I used to, when Naruto was a baby, but I'd get lonely and depressed so I stopped."

"You could've just called me," Minato muttered, scuffing the ground with the toe of his shoe.

"Yes, I know," she grumbled. "But we both know that I am stubborn and stupid."

"You're not stupid, Mom!" Naruto immediately protested and hugged her waist.

"I am not perfect, Naru-chan," Kushina sighed and patted his back. "In fact, I am as far from perfect as you can get."

"You're not quite that bad," Minato said with a shrug.

"Gee, thanks," she replied dryly. "That makes me feel so much better."

Minato chuckled weakly. "You're welcome."

Kushina childishly stuck her tongue out at him.

The haunter seemed inspired by her, and appeared over her shoulder and stuck out its larger, longer tongue and made ridiculous faces at him. Naruto yelped at the rush of cold air that the ghost brought with it and tripped over his own feet in his rush to escape. This made the boy's other pokémon agitated and ratcheted up the overall tension in the air.

"You know what?" Kushina sighed and pulled out the great-ball which Naruto had probably dropped when he'd discovered what was inside. "Why don't you get back in here?" She caught the ghost with the sphere's red recalling laser before the monster could give her any sort of answer and the haunter was sucked back inside. "There, that's better."

Naruto sagged with a deep exhale from his awkward seat on the ground like he could suddenly breathe properly again now that the ghost was gone. Kushina tossed the blue and white ball into his lap and then she put her starmie away. She eyed her son's clutch of concerned pokémon before glancing back down at the boy.

"I think we've all had enough excitement today. Why don't you put your friends away so that we can head back into town?"

"Okay," Naruto mumbled and returned all but his pikachu back to their spheres. The boy started to stand up, but his legs didn't seem to want to support him. His injuries, all the walking he'd done, and his stress with the haunter seemed to have done him in, leaving his legs as sturdy as jelly.

"Alright, alright, stop," Kushina sighed. She released another of her monsters, her faithful feraligatr. "Crusher, Naruto needs a lift."

The giant blue crocodilian lumbered over to the boy and picked him up in his scaly arms with surprising gentleness. Naruto looked both relieved that he didn't have to try and walk anymore and embarrassed that he needed to be carried like a baby. His young pikachu seemed fascinated with the great view he could get from on top of the feraligatr's head.

"Now let's go," Kushina grinned and she and Uzu-chan led the way back to Myouboku Town. Crusher and his two passengers immediately followed her. And the boy and his charmeleon, and the girl and her cherrim, followed after the feraligatr.

Minato hesitated, fiddling with Kirin's reins. He wanted to go with them, but his presence only made things awkward. Whenever he opened his mouth, all the kids would stare at him and Naruto looked like he was an inch away from freaking out.

_Maybe I should just—_

"Hey!" Kushina called over her shoulder. "Are you going to just stay out in the woods and sulk?"

"I wasn't sulking!" he yelled back. "I was thinking," he added more quietly and joined the short caravan back to town with Kirin in tow. "There's a difference."

"If you say so," she shrugged. "I think a nice soak in the hot springs is in order!"

_Well, in that case,_ Minato thought,_ I'll have to leave Kage on patrol to make sure that Jiraiya-oji-san doesn't do any peeping…_

* * *

Naruto groaned as he slipped into the steamy water of the _onsen_. He could see why Myouboku Town was known for its hot springs. Soaking in the hot water felt great, especially on his batter and sore body. And this particular _onsen_ even allowed pokémon to enjoy the hot water.

That was a good thing for Naruto because without Crusher's support, he probably would've drowned. The feraligatr basked under the surface of the water, letting Naruto rest on his back. As Bolt was leery of deep water after his near drowning experience as a pichu, Naruto switched him out for Gamakichi and the poison toad was enjoying himself immensely.

Sasuke was nearby, also relaxing in the hot water. As Sasuke's charmeleon was a fire pokémon and therefore allergic to bodies of water, he had replaced it with his elekid. On the other side of the wooden fence in the girl's side of the springs, Naruto's mother and Uzu-chan were luxuriating with Sakura and one of her pokémon.

Minato-sama, the great League Champion, had vanished shortly after they returned to town. Naruto was relieved; he'd made enough of a fool of himself for the day. And the green and yellow bruises on his left side looked really gross.

"Naruto," Sasuke grunted. "How come you never mentioned that your mom knew Minato Namikaze?"

"She never told me that she did," Naruto muttered back. "She never tells me that she knows anyone."

"Weird," Sasuke remarked as he rubbed between the plug-like horns on his elekid's head.

"Yeah," Naruto pouted as he watched Gamakichi frolic. "I wonder how she met him…"

"Her kabuto tried to steal my sandwich."

Naruto yelped and slipped off Crusher's back into deeper water. The boy struggled to surface, but his legs didn't seem to generate enough power. A well-muscled poliwrath helped him get back onto Crusher's scaly back so he could get some air.

"Wow," Minato-sama sighed in dismay. "Am I really that scary?"

The greatest trainer in Fire Country stood at the edge of the pool. He had exchanged his khaki pants and blue hooded sweatshirt for a pair of black swimming trunks with yellow lightning bolts down the sides and a towel over his shoulder. The poliwrath swam over to him and waited for the human to jump in and join it in the water.

Naruto gaped at the man for a good minute before the block that had kept him silent finally gave. "You keep appearing out of nowhere! What are you, some kind of super ninja?!"

Minato-sama looked a bit taken aback by Naruto's outburst, but then he laughed. "I don't think that anyone's accused me of that before," he chuckled as he slipped into the water.

"Er…" Naruto flushed in embarrassment. "Sorry."

"It's alright," the man smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"…Her kabuto tried to steal your sandwich?" Sasuke repeated slowly.

"Yes," the blonde man nodded.

Naruto fidgeted a bit before gathering his nerve to speak up again. "When did you meet my mom?"

"When I was about your age," the older trainer replied.

The boy shifted on Crusher's back. "That's cool." _So Mom met him before he was famous._

"I didn't think so at the time," Minato-sama sighed as he settled back against the edge of the hot spring. "She just inserted herself into my company and never seemed interested in leaving."

Naruto was mortified. _Man, Mom found a way to embarrass me before I was even born!_

"Fangirls," Sasuke muttered.

"She wasn't a fan," the Champion corrected. "I had no reputation at the time; I don't come from a famous bloodline. And her presence wasn't all bad. She kept me company, kept things interesting, helped me out, and she even saved my life once."

Naruto gaped. "Ah! How come she never told me any of this?!"

The man looked sad. "You would have to ask her that."

"I will," Naruto decided.

There wasn't any further conversation after that for a while. Naruto sat on Crusher's submerged body and watched Gamakichi try to arm-wrestle with the poliwrath only to lose every time to the more experienced fighting toad's strength. The warm water was soothing and the blonde boy started to nod off.

"I think you're done," Minato-sama said quietly as he caught Naruto before the boy let his face droop into the water. He reached under the water and tapped Crusher on the head, bringing the feraligatr to the surface. "It's time to get out of the pool."

Crusher climbed out of the spring, still carrying Naruto on his shoulders. Seeing his trainer leaving, Gamakichi hurried to follow with the poliwrath following. The older blonde led the giant crocodilian into the locker rooms where he helped Naruto dry off and exit the _onsen_.

"I'm okay," Naruto insisted as he leaned against Crusher's scaly blue flank outside of the boy's side of the hot springs. "I'm not tired," he claimed around a yawn.

"Right," the man chuckled as he put his poliwrath back in its ball.

A surprising amount of time had passed and it was getting into the evening hours. It was nearly dinner time. But it felt a lot later to Naruto and despite his claims he could've curled up in a bed and gone to sleep in minutes.

"…Naruto," Minato-sama said hesitantly. "I'm sorry about the haunter."

"It's alright," Naruto blinked. "You didn't know that…I don't like ghosts."

"Well, it bothers me that I've saddled you with a monster that you probably will never use." The man stared off towards the sinking sun. "…So I figured that I could trade you something for it that would be more useful to you."

Naruto was rendered speechless. Even though the haunter was a ghost, it was special because the great Minato-sama had helped him get it. But the opportunity to trade it for something that wasn't a ghost, a monster that Minato-sama had captured and trained … It was mind-blowing.

"…Really?!" the boy finally managed to squeak.

"Really," the Champion confirmed with a nod. "If that's what you want."

Naruto slid down Crusher's side to sit on the ground, his mind spinning. He probably wouldn't be offered any of the pokémon that he'd seen the man use in his televised matches, but he surely had more pokémon at his disposal than he used. And who knew what creatures there were to choose from.

But…should he really just get rid of Spooky the haunter? Not too many trainers used ghost-types and ghosts had certain advantages. And having a ghost would help him overcome his issues with the type so that if he faced down another trainer with a ghost pokémon he would freak out or freeze up.

"…I don't know," he mumbled.

"That's alright." The man gently helped him to his feet again. "When you make up your mind, let me know."

"Okay." And then Naruto blurted out a stupid request. "Can I see your dragon?"

But instead of refusing him like Naruto expected, the man smiled kindly at him. "Sure."

The League Champion released a large, tan, winged beast with thin little antennae. It was tall, but still a few inches shorter than his mothers massive feraligatr. The mighty dragon looked kind of cute, but that belied its great power.

The dragonite first greeted Crusher like he was an old friend before taking notice of Naruto clinging to the feraligatr's side. It actually seemed a bit startled to see him and quickly leaned down to get a better look. Naruto held his breath as the dragon gently touched his face and hair with its sharp claws and even sniffed at him some. Then the dragonite glanced over at its trainer before exchanging some words with Crusher. The dragon considered whatever it had learned from the crocodilian, looked down at Naruto again…and smiled at him as it patted him on the head like he was a cute little puppy.

"So I take it that you approve of Naruto, Ryuu?" the dragon's trainer asked.

Ryuu the dragonite gave an affirmative reply.

"Oh good," Minato-sama grinned.

Gamakichi hopped around from behind Naruto and croaked inquisitively at the towering dragon. Ryuu politely greeted the little croagunk and the two appeared to have a nice little chat. But the cute pokémon interaction was interrupted by a man's yell and the cawing of a bird on the far side of the _onsen_ complex.

In minutes, the bird cries and the man's startled shouts drew closer. And then the tall, white-haired man that Naruto's mother had identified as Myouboku Town's gym leader skidded around the corner coming from the woman's side of the springs with a honchkrow pecking at his head. The gym leader ran back and forth in front of the _onsen_ until Minato-sama whistled and the dark bird broke off to land by his side.

"Good bird, Kage," the Champion said, patting the honchkrow on its fedora-like feather crest.

"Minato!" the man with ridiculously long white hair wailed. "That was uncalled for and unnecessary!"

The blonde man didn't look at all apologetic. "I respectfully disagree, Uncle."

"He's your uncle?" Naruto asked.

"Yes," Minato-sama sighed, "I am related to him."

"Eh?" The strange man moved so that he could see Naruto between the bulky dragonite and feraligatr. "Oh! It's you again!" And then he spied Gamakichi. "You have a croagunk?"

"Yeah," Naruto answered slowly.

"Excellent!" the man declared, clapping his hands together. "I like you already!" He cleared his throat theatrically. "Allow me to properly introduce myself…"

There was a flash of light as the man simultaneously released a poliwrath and politoed. The two pokémon took stations on either side of the man, and went through a little dance routine of some kind. The gym leader also danced…sort of…if one considered weird poses and hopping on one foot "dancing".

"I am the great Jiraiya!" he announced. "I am the gym leader of Myouboku Town, Sage of Toads, master of amphibious pokémon, author of best-selling books, and wooer of women!"

"And a super pervert," Naruto's mother sighed as she exited the _onsen_ with her vaporeon and Sakura and her eevee, wholly unmoved by the man's presentation. She punched him in the shoulder as she passed him. "Shame on you for peeping!"

"Kushina-chan, you wound me!" Jiraiya pouted. "I didn't see anything!"

"But you would have if Kage hadn't stopped you," she shot back as she reached the honchkrow. "Thank you, Kage."

The dark bird preened happily at the praise.

"Who's the weirdo?" Sasuke asked Naruto as the Uchiha and his elekid joined the small throng outside of the _onsen_.

"Jiraiya, the gym leader," Naruto muttered.

Sasuke looked less than impressed.

Sakura anxiously tugged on Naruto's mother's sleeve. "Did he really try to peep on us while we were bathing?"

"Yes," his mother answered with a grimace as Uzu-chan licked the pink-haired girl's eevee dry. "It's a hobby of his…along with writing dirty romance novels that are basically porn stories."

"I do not write porn!" Jiraiya protested stoutly. "I write best-selling pieces of literature!"

"Whatever," the red-haired woman muttered. Then she squealed as the dragonite scooped her up in its arms to hug her. "Hi Ryuu! I missed you, too!"

"Did you miss me?" Jiraiya asked.

She eyed him narrowly as the dragonite put her back down. "…Maybe."

"So mean," the man pouted and shrank in on himself as his two frog-like pokémon patted his shoulders consolingly.

"Hmph," she snorted and placed herself between her faithful feraligatr and the blonde man.

Minato-sama seemed to notice something now that Naruto's mother wasn't wearing her jacket and lifted her heart scale necklace into better view.

"Since when do you wear jewelry?"

"Since I didn't want to lose this scale," she answered.

He studied the shimmering heart-shaped scale for a moment, and then smiled warmly at her. She grinned back at him and it looked like she was blushing a bit. Naruto's eyes darted back and forth between them in mounting confusion.

_What the heck are they doing?!_

When the Champion lifted his hand to her cheek, Naruto moved in to tug on her arm.

"Mom, can we go get dinner now?"

"Okay," she sighed, smiling wryly. "What would you like?"

"Ramen!" he immediately answered.

"Of course," she snorted. "Let's go. I know just the place…"

* * *

Minato sat out on the back porch of his uncle's house and stared up at the starry night sky. Without the bright, constant lights of a big city, and with the clear mountain air, there were thousands upon thousands of tiny stars to see. It was a beautiful sight that he missed when he stayed in Capital City.

Kushina appeared from inside the house and sat beside him, passing him a steaming mug of a brown liquid that he determined was hot cocoa. Like the breakfast she'd made for him a few days ago, it wasn't toxic. In fact, it was pretty good.

"Is he asleep?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said with a nod. "I didn't even get the chance to let him know that he's sleeping in your old room."

"He'll find out in the morning," Minato shrugged and sipped at his drink.

"And he'll be so excited," she giggled.

"I dunno," he muttered. "He didn't seem too keen on me getting close to you. And he kept giving me suspicious looks all through dinner."

"He's never seen me with a man before," she replied. "He's never had to share me with anyone."

"Really?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "You never tried to date anyone else?"

"Nah," she snorted. "You set the boyfriend bar too high. I haven't found anyone that can compare."

Minato grinned so broadly that it started to hurt his cheek. "Oh really?"

"What about you?" Kushina asked. "I'm sure that you had plenty of pretty girls desperate to date you."

"I was talked into a few blind dates," he admitted. "And I was roped into going on a few dates with girls as contest prizes," he added with a grimace. "But I never found a single girl that I found half as interesting or attractive as you."

"Gah! Stop making me blush!" she huffed and lightly punched his shoulder. "You wicked charmer!"

"Only for you," he laughed and looped an arm around her shoulders.

The red-haired woman sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Minato… Sometimes…a lot of times…I wonder why you were ever interested in me."

"I could give you a hundred reasons, but I'll just keep it simple," he replied. "Because you were you, and…" He paused to swallow nervously. "And I loved you."

She was silent for a while, and it was only until he felt a damp spot spreading on his shoulder did he realize that she was crying.

"I'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have run. I should've called a long time ago. But if I ever got in the way…held you back from your dreams…I—"

"Shh…" He put aside his mug of hot cocoa, and then took hers from her hands so that he could pull her into his lap. "You would never have gotten in the way of my goals. At worst, I just would've been delayed from achieving what I wanted, and I could've waited. But that's all in the past, and there isn't much sense on going over it anymore."

"I'm sorry," she sniffled.

Minato had to chuckle. "I think you've apologized more times so far this week than I've ever seen you apologize in all the years that I've known you."

"Ha ha," she muttered sourly. "You're lucky that I love you, otherwise I'd give you a good hard elbow."

"Eh?" Minato blinked, pulling back to look her in the face, "You…what?"

"_Baka_," she sniffed and rubbed the tears from her cheeks. "I followed you around for years, slept with you on multiple occasions, and had your baby—of course I love you!"

Minato gaped at her. "You…mean that?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it!" she retorted, rolling her eyes. "Now either kiss me or let me go so I can go to bed."

He blinked dumbly, laughed a little, and then kissed her.


	7. Part VII

**Falling Down**_  
Part VII_

Naruto almost thought that he was back in his room in Konoha Town when he woke up. He clearly wasn't in the hospital room anymore, nor was he staying in the plain rooms packed with bunk beds that pokémon centers kept for travelling trainers. But as he cleared the sleep from his eyes, he started picking out all the differences between his room and this room.

The bed sheets were all wrong—he had magikarp- and staryu-patterned sheets, and this bed had pokéball-patterned sheets. The posters taped to the walls were wrong—all of these posters were old and faded by years of sunlight exposure and most were of trainers that he'd never heard of (like who was Sakumo Hatake the "White Fang"?). The walls were the wrong color—his room was yellow-orange, not pale blue. And the books that lined the bookshelves…he didn't have that many books, he mainly collected stacks of manga magazines.

_How'd I get in some other kid's room?_ Naruto wondered fuzzily as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. _…And what a lame room. It's full of ancient posters and boring books…and dust._

He stretched slowly with a lot of wincing and some yawning. With his painkillers worn off, his ribs really ached. So he stiffly shuffled out of the mystery bedroom, leaving Demon sleeping on the end of the bed and dimly wondering where the toad-print pajamas he was wearing had come from.

Frowning in concentration, he thought back to the previous night. He remembered the ramen dinner at the nice little restaurant and how good the noodle soup had tasted. He also recalled how Minato-sama had come along too, and how the man had kept touching his mother's hand and giving her mysterious looks and smiles. Now Naruto was just plain frowning.

_Minato-sama is cool…but he should know better than to touch someone's mom that way! It's creepy and wrong! And…and not allowed!_

He wandered aimlessly through the strange house, poking his head through open doors. He found a few closets, a bathroom, one locked door, and a room full of books before finding the stairs. After slowly going down the steps, he started looking around the ground floor.

And then he found his mother.

She was curled up in a green sleeping bag on the floor of the living room fast asleep. But she wasn't alone; Minato-sama was there too, asleep in a dark blue sleeping bag. And even though they were in separate bags they were snuggled up next to each other, and they looked like they were holding hands.

Naruto gawked at the sight.

This was clearly Not Appropriate. This was obviously Not Allowed. And Naruto was going to put a stop to it…and then get his pills.

He opened his mouth to yell—

A large hand closed over his mouth, an arm wrapped around his torso, and then he was lifted off the ground and carried Naruto away to another part of the house. The boy tried to struggle, but it hurt too much. Just as he was starting to panic over being kidnapped, he was plopped down on a chair in the house's kitchen and he got a look at the person who had grabbed him.

"Hey!" Naruto muttered indignantly at the white-haired gym leader. "Why'd you grab me?! Are you a pervert _and_ a pedophile?!"

The towering man scowled down at him. "I am not a pedophile! I was merely preventing you from disturbing such a cute and romantic scene!"

Naruto squinted at the man in confusion. "Huh?"

"Let them sleep," Jiraiya said as he started going about brewing up a pot of coffee. "They need it after being apart so long."

The boy watched him measure out coffee grounds. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my house," Jiraiya snorted. "Why shouldn't I be here?"

"Oh." Naruto rubbed at his scarred cheek. "So…who's room was I sleeping in?"

"Minato's old room," the man answered as the coffee maker started to bubble. "And those were his old PJs, if you were curious."

The blonde boy boggled at that.

The self-proclaimed "Toad Sage" studied him curiously from across the kitchen. "Why so surprised?"

While Naruto wasn't one of those crazy fans who'd pay money to get their idol's used tissues, he was blown away by the fact that he'd slept in Minato-sama's room and had some of his clothes. It was beyond his wildest dreams. Not only had he met the man in person and spoken with him, the man had gotten him a haunter and offered him the chance to trade, he'd gotten to meet the man's dragonite, and now all of this…

Naruto wanted to explain all of that, but he was still dumbfounded.

Jiraiya settled himself across the table from the boy. "Kid, what do you know about your father?"

"Uh…" Naruto dropped his eyes to the table. "…Nothing."

"…_Nothing?!_" Jiraiya choked.

Naruto idly traced a swirl in the grain of the wood of the table with his finger.

"That…that stupid, stupid girl!" the man growled.

"Eh?" Naruto glanced up curiously. "Who?"

"Your mother," Jiraiya grumbled.

"Don't you call my mom stupid!" Naruto snapped, instantly incensed. "Take it back right now!"

The gym leader was unaffected by Naruto's righteous anger. "No. She ditches Minato with no warning or word and leaves him miserable for years, and she tells you nothing? That's stupid. She has no reason to do that."

Naruto opened his mouth to protest—

"I smell coffee," Minato-sama mumbled as he blindly stumbled into the kitchen.

"It's not ready yet," Jiraiya grunted and gently guided the blonde man to the table. "Here, sit down."

The League Champion yawned and scrubbed at his eyes. "What were you talking about?"

"How stupid your girlfriend is," Jiraiya answered.

Naruto sat back in his chair, his mind spinning off in an entirely new direction. The two men kept talking—something about smart people panicking and irrational fears—but Naruto really wasn't listening. His mother being Minato-sama's old friend and traveling partner was one thing, but if she was his _girlfriend_…

Without a word, Naruto slipped off his chair and left the kitchen. He found a door that led out onto the back porch and went outside. The house was a lot like his home in Konoha Town. It was on the outskirts, surrounding the building with the open spaces of nature. Naruto walked off the porch and kept going until he found a nice big tree to sit underneath that was just out of sight of the house.

His mother never really said anything to him about his father. But once she had let slip one thing. She told him that she'd only ever had one boyfriend, and that boyfriend was his father. So if she was Minato-sama's _girlfriend_ that meant that…

Naruto curled up into a ball and, although he wasn't sure why, he started to cry.

* * *

Demon woke up and found himself alone at the foot of the bed. That didn't bother the vulpix any. Whisker Face wasn't likely to be too far away. So with a yawn and a stretch, the oddly-hued vulpix hopped down from the bed and looked for a way outside.

An open backdoor let the little fire fox out into the cool morning air. A bush near the porch was as good a place as any to relieve himself. But before he could head back inside and seek out food, Demon noticed Whisker Face's scent and footsteps in the dewy grass.

Curious, and not yet starving, Demon followed the trail a short distance into the trees to see what the stupid little human was doing.

Whisker Face wasn't alone. The female venusaur that belonged to the more evolved Whisker Face look-alike was there, poking the curled up human with a vine. Whisker Face ignored the pokes and just kept making soft pathetic sounds that didn't seem to have any meaning.

Demon poked the venusaur's thick leg with a paw. _:What are you doing?:_

_:Something is wrong with your trainer,:_ she told him. _:I saw him walking out here while I was gathering morning sunlight. Do you know why he's crying?:_

_:I dunno,:_ Demon muttered. He could smell no blood so the boy hadn't hurt himself again, and no other reason for crying came to the fox's mind. _:I just woke up. And who can really understand humans anyway?:_

_:Other humans can,:_ the venusaur replied. _:Perhaps you should go fetch Minato-kun or Kushina-chan to help him.:_

Demon ignored the suggestion in favor of poking the boy himself. _:Hey, Whisker Face! Hey!:_

_:You call him "Whisker Face"?:_ the venusaur rumbled disapprovingly.

_:Sure,:_ Demon snorted as he put both paws on the boy to shake him. _:It's not like he can understand a word that I'm saying.:_

The boy uncurled slightly and reached out to push the vulpix aside before curling back up again and ignoring both pokémon.

_:…Whisker Face?:_

The boy _never_ pushed him away and ignored him. The human was always eager to try and bond the vulpix tighter to himself and pounced on every instance when the fox pokémon approached him voluntarily. This behavior was all wrong.

Demon darted back to the house and found two humans sitting at the table in one of the rooms—a human with long white hair, and the Whisker Face look-alike. Using one of the chairs, the vulpix bounded up onto the table and parked himself directly in front of Look-Alike. The human paused in sipping at his mug at looked at Demon curiously.

"Hello again," Look-Alike greeted and reached out a hand to pat Demon's head.

_:No,:_ Demon barked, snapping at the fingers. _:You will not pet me. You will follow me!:_

"Interesting critter," White Hair remarked. "Would you look at that coloration… It belongs to the kid?"

Demon bristled at the color comment, but focused on his task and pounded his paws on the table top. _:Follow me, stupid!:_

"Yes, it's Naruto's," Look-Alike answered, putting his cup down. "I have to remember to ask him how he got a hold of it."

_:Stop sitting there and follow me!:_ Demon snapped. _:You followed me last time, what's so hard about it now?:_

"What's got it so riled up, I wonder," White Hair muttered. "…And where did the kid go?"

This gave Look-Alike paused and he finally stood up and focused on Demon. "You know where he went?"

_:Yes!:_ Demon dove off the table and waited by the open door. _:This way!:_

The human followed and Demon led him the short way to Whisker Face. The boy hadn't moved and was still making miserable sounds. Look-Alike moved in to determine this strange human problem and fix it.

Demon hopped up onto the venusaur's head and settled in to wait.

* * *

Minato had no idea what he was going to find when he followed the vulpix out behind the house. Myouboku Town was a fairly safe place, but there were plenty of ways for Naruto to have found himself in trouble again. Maybe he'd gotten a little loopy on his painkillers and wandered off. Or perhaps he'd become sick and couldn't return to the house.

It was a relief to find that Hana was with him. He liked to let his venusaur outside overnight so that she could catch the earliest rays of the morning sunlight. Hana hovered over the boy anxiously, poking at him but getting no response.

Naruto was huddled up in a ball and whimpering. He didn't appear to have any new injuries, which relieved Minato some. He knelt down by the pajama-clad boy and put a hand on his back.

"Naruto?"

The boy flinched away from his hand. "Go 'way."

"Why?" Minato asked. "What's wrong?"

"Leave me alone," Naruto whimpered.

"Not until you tell me what's going on," Minato insisted. "Why don't we go back inside? It's kind of damp and cold out here, and I'm sure you could use some breakfast."

Naruto didn't respond to that, but instead started speaking about something else. "Your uncle said…that my mom was your girlfriend."

"Yes," he nodded slowly. "She was."

The boy slowly, stiffly sat up, and rubbed at his damp, blotchy cheeks. "She said…that she only had one boyfriend…and…"

Minato shifted to sit beside the boy—his son—and stare out deeper into the woods. "…And this bothers you? Your mother seems to think that you would be happy."

"I don't know," Naruto mumbled hoarsely, digging his hands into his hair. "I guess it's really cool, but… You weren't there. It was just Mom and me."

"I would've been there, if I'd known," Minato sighed and leaned back against the tree trunk. "She disappeared on me and never let me know where she was. And I never knew about you until I found you myself."

Naruto stared down at his hands for a while, and Minato just sat with him, unsure of what to say or if there was anything else that he could say. Then the boy abruptly got up and trudged back to the house. Minato followed him a few steps behind all the way to the living room where Kushina still lay sleeping. He watched from the doorway as the boy sank down on the carpeted floor beside her and shook her shoulder.

"Mommy?"

She slowly started to stir—

Minato started as his uncle touched his shoulder. "What?" he whispered.

"Phone call for you," Jiraiya murmured back. "In the study. It seems important."

With a grimace and a sigh, he went to the small study in the corner of the house and took the video phone off hold. He wanted to grimace again when he saw a grim-faced police officer on the screen. But instead of frowning, he managed a polite smile.

"Good morning, officer. What can I do for you?"

"Good morning, Minato Namikaze-sama," the office greeted formally with a slight bow. "I am Officer Tekka Uchiha."

It wasn't much of a surprise to find an Uchiha police officer. Only so many of the Uchiha could go into the family business of running Uchiha Corporation, and the Uchiha Clan was a sprawling mess of interconnected families. So most of the leftover Uchiha tended to go into the "other" family business and become police officers throughout the Land of Fire.

"I am aware that you are on vacation at the moment," the Uchiha continued. "However, a matter has come up in the Forest of Death that we would wish your assistance in investigating. Suspicious characters have been seen skulking around and it is believed that they may be poaching pokémon. It is also believed that they used pokémon to attack a pair of young trainers who may have inadvertently stumbled across what they were doing."

Minato sucked a breath through his teeth. "So you want me there as soon as possible to back up your officers?"

"Yes," Officer Tekka nodded. "We wouldn't have bothered you, but…" He frowned deeply. "…Tsunade Senju is on another gambling binge in the Senju City casinos and refuses to be bothered. No other gym leaders are close enough to justify calling them away from their posts to assist us."

"…Alright," Minato sighed, doing his best to bury his irritation and disappointment. "I'll leave here later today and meet you at Police Headquarters in Senju City?"

"That would be most appreciated, Namikaze-sama." The Uchiha bowed at the screen again. "And we're terribly sorry about cutting into your off-time."

"It's alright," Minato replied, even though it really wasn't. "I'll see you then."

The police officer nodded and the phone screen went dark.

Minato groaned and turned the phone off.

_Fantastic,_ he thought sarcastically. _Just great. Tsunade-oba-san, why do you have to be so selfish?_

Tsunade Senju really wasn't his aunt, even though he always referred to her that way. She and his uncle had been old traveling partners and childhood friends. If she hadn't fallen in love with a pokémon ranger named Dan, Minato was sure that she and his uncle would've been married. But after Dan's tragic death while working out in the wilds, Tsunade became bitter towards the world and spent more and more time drinking and gambling in her home city's casinos. It had gotten so bad that Minato wondered why her gym's certification hadn't been revoked—she was almost never available for trainers to challenge her and she hadn't given out a badge in years.

_Well…I better get going. Breakfast and then a shower._ Shaking his head, he moved towards the kitchen. _And then I have a few errands to run before I leave…_

* * *

Naruto sat on the edge of the porch behind Jiraiya's house and fingered the great-ball that contained Spooky. Demon was dozing next to him. Bolt was playing with a pokéball, kicking it around and balancing it on his head. Shadow seemed to be playing tag with Uzu-chan out in the backyard. And Gamakichi had found a rotten tree stump to use as a punching bag.

He really wasn't paying any attention to what was going on around him. His head was too full to really think clearly. He didn't know what to feel.

He supposed that he should be happy. He'd gone from having no father, to one of the coolest fathers possible. If he went down to the pokémon center where Sakura and Sasuke were staying, he would surely amaze them with this new information. They would certainly think better of him knowing that he was related to someone cool and important, instead of just thinking he was nutty and unimportant like his eccentric mother.

_Mom…_

It was hard to imagine her afraid of anything. She wasn't bothered by ghosts or scary movies or the dark or bug pokémon or anything! One time, at Konoha Town's grocery store, a wild spinarak had gotten stuck inside and while all the other women screamed and ran away from the spider pokémon, she calmly picked it up and let it outside. His mom was tough and fearless and always knew what to do and was the best mom ever.

And yet, when he talked to her about why his father wasn't around, she claimed it was because she had been afraid. She hadn't been ready for him to come along; she hadn't expected him at all. She'd run away…and never had the courage to come back.

_"But…I don't understand!"_

_"Maybe you will one day, when you're older and you've found that special person—that special person who is the foundation of your world. I never thought I'd find that, I never expected to, I never __**wanted**__ to. But then I found him, and the thought of him hating me or resenting me or just being disappointed with me…it turned me into a cowardly idiot."_

_"You're not a coward Mom! Or an idiot!"_

_"You'd be very surprised if you could watch a movie of my whole life… I've told you already, Naruto—I'm not as perfect as you think I am. I'm __**far**__ from perfect. I've made a bunch of dumb decisions that haven't been fair to you, your father, or any of my family. This whole mess is my entire fault. Really, you ought to hate me…"_

He didn't hate her, though. He could never hate his mother. Sure, he got mad at her when she didn't let him have that extra cookie or grounded him or made him do his homework, but he could never, ever _hate_ her. She was the only family that he had.

Well, he did have a father, and that father apparently had an uncle. And then there was his mother's father and brothers and cousins and such out in some little foreign backwater country that he'd probably never visit. But he didn't know any of them, and hadn't meet most of them, so they really didn't count.

Naruto groaned and leaned his forehead down to his knees. He just wanted to walk away from this mess, forget the gym challenge, and just disappear into the mountains for a while until he could figure things out. With his trainer's license now secure, there was no pressure to get badges as fast as possible. As soon as he was healed and off the painkillers he could just walk out of town into the wilds…

_"Never do what I've done, Naruto. Never run away when things don't go your way or you get scared. It never solves anything and only causes more problems. Promise me, Naruto…"_

"But I wanna," Naruto whined to himself as he slowly straightened back up. "It's not like I wouldn't come back."

"Where are you going?"

Naruto yelped and twisted around to find the League Champion standing behind him. "Gah! Quit doing that!"

"I don't mean to sneak up on you," the man apologized. "So…where are you going?"

"Nowhere," Naruto muttered and turned back to watch the pokémon frolic in the yard. "I was just talking to myself."

"Okay." The man came closer and sat on the porch steps beside him, setting down a heavy pack on the grass. "Well, unfortunately, I am going somewhere."

"You are?!" Naruto blinked.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Something's come up somewhere and it doesn't matter that I'm supposed to be on vacation for a month." The man shook his head. "If I knew there'd be so many different demands on my time I might not have tried so hard to become the champion."

Naruto stiffened in shock. "Really?!"

"Really," he said with a faint smile. "I probably would've waited a few years, taken my time to enjoy things a little more. …And _then_ I would've stepped up so that Hiruzen-sama could retire to study pokémon in Konoha Town."

"Oh." Naruto fidgeted with the great-ball.

"Well, before I go…" The blonde man pulled a red digital device from his bag and handed it to the boy. "I believe this is yours."

Naruto took the repaired pokédex and flipped it open one-handed. He pressed the "on" button and, after a few beeping tones, the screen lit up. There was a warning tone, and then the great-ball that contained the haunter disappeared in a flash of light, shooting upwards to an orbiting satellite to be relayed back to Professor Sarutobi's lab in Konoha Town. And then he was once again within the legal limit of six monsters on his person at a time.

"Bye bye," he murmured and put the pokédex away in his pants pocket.

"And one more thing…" The Champion pulled a plain wooden box from his pack and held it out. "…A few things you might find useful someday."

Naruto took the box, but didn't open it.

"Well," the man sighed ruefully. "I'd better get going."

He stood up and walked out into the middle of the backyard where he released Ryuu the dragonite. Then he pulled a large leather harness out from a side compartment of his backpack and started slipping it on the dragon. Naruto realized that he was going to _fly_ to wherever he had to go. As the man finished up his preparations for departure, Naruto slid off the porch steps and hesitantly walked over.

The blonde-haired man paused in lashing himself to the crouching dragon when he noticed the boy's approach. "You need something?"

"I was wondering…" Naruto traced the corners of the wooden box with his fingertips. "Will I…ever see you again?"

"Of course!" he chuckled. "Unless…you don't want to see me?"

"Nah, it's-it's fine if you want to…I don't care," Naruto shrugged, running a nervous hand through his hair.

The man smiled faintly at him. "Alright. Stand back now."

Naruto took a few big steps back, and all the loose pokémon gathered around him to watch the dragonite lift off. It didn't seem possible that such small wings could lift such a large dragon (_and_ a human!) into the air, but Ryuu lifted off the ground as light as a feather. The dragon quickly climbed high into the sky, circled the house once, and then darted off in a direction. In moments, the man and the dragon were gone completely from sight.

"Wow," the boy breathed.

And then his eyes fell to the box in his hands. It wasn't very heavy, but it wasn't light like it was empty either. Curious, he lifted the lid to peer at the box's mysterious contents.

Inside, he found two stones. One was yellowish in color, and it looked like it had a flame trapped inside it. The other was a glassy green with a yellow lightning bolt shape at its heart. Both stones seemed to have a strange energy about them.

They were evolution stones: A thunder stone and a fire stone. The unique radiation put off by the rocks was a catalyst. The thunder stone would cause Bolt to evolve from a pikachu into a raichu. And the fire stone would make Demon evolve from a vulpix into a ninetails.

Taped to the inside lid of the box, Naruto found a folded note.

_For when you think that they're ready…_

_Love,  
Dad_


End file.
